looking for old-school lab to make metal prints

I am looking for a high-end pro lab to make large metal prints from drum scans of medium and large format slides and negatives. But I want a lab that still does customer service. Every place I've seen uses automated roes software....does not accept (or send) proofs....doesn't accept phone calls. In fact there seems to be no human intervention at all. I figure if I'm going to spend several hundred dollars, I'd like someone at the lab to actually work with me at least a little bit. Are there still labs like that? I still have fond memories of West Coast Imaging.....

I'm also looking for a reliable source of metal prints. Haven't decided yet, but am looking at zno, fullcolor, meridianpro, adoramapix, nationsphotolab, mpix, and us.whitewall.

Found one! Ironically, it's a lab that I used to use extensively years ago: West Coast Imaging. They've downsized a bit and changed their name to Metal and Paper, but I had a nice talk with one of the print-makers there and it sounds like they're doing the sort of high-end, personalized printing that they used to do. Anyway I'm going to try them out (again).

 

Interesting story: I talked with someone at another lab (that a fellow photographer had recommended), and it turned out that they didn't actually do their own printinging....they were out-sourcing it to an out-of-state business and never even looked at the images! (so obviously they had no interest in looking at proofs, etc.)

Edited October 13, 2017 by brian_alworth|1

Brian, care to share which lab outsources their metal printing jobs? Do you have any more information on the other companies I mentioned?