Best quality photo lab in BC

<p>I haven't been able to find anything through google with a comparison between major national labs. I have digital photos I want to have printed. Here are the companies I'm looking at:<br>

1) London Drugs ($0.35)<br>

2) Walmart ($0.19)<br>

3) Costco ($0.15 online, likely not much different in store)<br>

4) Black's Photography ($219.99/1000 prints + a Samsung ES28 Camera, prepaid, $0.22; or $118.75/600, $0.20)<br>

5) Japan Camera/Foto Source ($0.29; $0.19+$10 with VIP program)<br>

6) Kerrisdale Cameras ($0.29)<br>

7) Lens & Shutter ($0.19 based on 500 print prepaid card)<br>

Which lab produces the best quality prints. I have traditionally used London Drugs, but I question whether the price premium is worth it. Right now I have about 400-600 4x6 prints that I have to print from a recent trip to put in an album. Cost is obviously a factor, but I don't want to go with the cheapest if they look like junk. If anyone knows of a website that has done a comparison between any of these companies or has any first hand experience comparing the quality please let me know. If not I'm going to take a couple of reference pictures from the trip and have each place print them out and I will self compare, but I don't really want to do that if someone else has already done it ;) Also, I have ruled out the online options because the amount of data to transfer would take too long to upload.<br>

Thanks in advance!!</p>

<p>This is a pretty <em><strong>local</strong></em> question if you just want to know about BC.<br>

Do you have any camera interest groups/clubs in your area? I'd think 15 min. there would be a lot more useful to you than advice from afar.<br>

Even the same company like Walmart or Costco will vary enormously from one location to another, even in the same city, much less across the continent. For that matter, they can vary from day to day. Too much depends on the interest of the local manager, the accident of having a competent, as opposed to minimum-wage, staff, and so on and on.</p>

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<p>I don't know what the Black's in BC uses (knowing that BC is fairly large.....) The one here is Winnipeg gives very good quality prints. They are done on Fuji Pearl Archive paper.</p>

<p>JDM - yes this is a very local question and frankly, I'm looking to see if any Canadians, who have used these companies, have an opinion; NOT advice from afar. There are many users from many countries other than the US that use this site.<br>

Except for Kerrisdale and Lens & Shutter (who have multiple locations in BC, mostly in the heavily populated areas), these all have locations pretty much across Canada (LD is Western Canada) and any Canadians reading this would likely have used one of these companies or seen the results. You have to remember there is something like 33 million people in Canada. Its not like there are hundreds of different photo processing companies in a province. It is likely there isn't a lot of variation in equipment at different Walmart or Costco locations where there are only 35 and 13 locations respectively in the entire province, 2 and 1 in my city compared to 20 Walmart's in the the Seattle area alone and 29 Costco's in WA state. I live in a city of about 350,000 and about 4.5 million in the province, there isn't a lot of forums to discuss this sort of thing and how do you know I didn't ask around already? The majority of people that live in BC or any other province is likely to have used these companies. And frankly, asking a question in this forum is easier than finding a local photography group. Furthermore, I think it is extremely difficult to control for things you mention above like local Management, etc, when discussing any company let alone a small regionals like lens and shutter and a multinational like Walmart. I think what I'm interested in is more the general quality of the pictures; whose finished product looks better in general. I don't care what they use or how they do it. I just don't want to take a reference picture to all of these places to see which outcome looks best.<br>

Plus what does it hurt to throw this kind of question out? I'm sick of asking questions on forums and getting these kind of responses back. If you don't like the question or don't have an answer, why not ignore the post? Who am I hurting by asking a question like this? Furthermore, its easy to ignore; my subject line states explicitly what I am looking for. If I was reading this forum and it said WA instead of BC, I would just move on because I know nothing about any processors in WA state. I'm simply hoping that some Canadian(s), who frequent(s) this site, may be able to help me. Stop wasting people's time by answering forum questions with answers that don't answer the question!<br>

Lorne - thanks for having some common sense. Your answer was exactly the type I was looking for. Thank you for responding!!</p>

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<p>If you don't like the question or don't have an answer, why not ignore the post?</p>

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<p>If you don't like the answer, why not ignore it? <strong><em>And I did give an answer</em></strong> -- <strong>ask other photographers locally</strong>.</p>

<p>It's precisely because this IS an international and archived website that makes your kind of question more than a little parochial. You must have some kind of realization of this fact or you wouldn't have reacted so strongly. Again</p>

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<p>Stop wasting people's time by answering forum questions with answers that don't answer the question!</p>

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<p>Why fill up the archived sites with questions that are better answered locally in any case? At least my suggestion would apply outside BC as well as inside.</p>

<p>Somewhere in the various conditions of use, there is the suggestion that people ask themselves if their post has general and lasting interest. This is not a Twitter site, after all.</p>

<p>Your best bet is to get it done at Custom Color in Vancouver, ABC Photo also in Vancouver, or Lens and Shutter. London Drugs some if not all their labs have gone over to inkject printing which is not as good as wet prints, and some Walmart labs have gone to dry die sub prints which also isn't as good as wet prints. Check to make sure which lab you choose doesn't do dry prints for what you have done.</p>