what happened to A and I

[robert himmelright]

About two years ago I sent in some b/w film to them and it came back great,

borders, real b/w paper....everything. I just sent in a batch of three rolls

using their mailers and they're awful! No borders even though I asked for

them...they're printed on color paper and are green...as a frontier tech myself

there is no reason any lab should have green frontier prints other than

incompitance or lazyness, over sharpened, and to top it all off, they told me if

i want a refund i have to spend my money to send the prints back and they'll

determine if they'll reprint them, refund me, or just return the original

prints, note none of these options involve refunding my shipping costs.

[bruce_karnopp1]

It looks as if they processed them as if they were color negatives. The number of places that still develop B&W negatives are getting fewer and fewer.

On the other hand, more than half the fun is developing and printing yourself. Having done that for over 50 years, it gives you a sense of pride when things work and a sense of perspective when they do not.

 

With equipment going so cheap on ebay, it is worth a try!

[cbender]

I still use them for my color processing, both E6 and C41, and everything has been fine. I haven't ever sent them any B&W because I can easily do that myself.

 

Were the mailers you sent B&W? I wonder how much care they take to sort things into the proper directions. I haven't used any mailers in quite a while; I just bag the film and toss it into a FedEx envelope. I've mixed C41 and E6, and never had a problem.

 

Anyway, it sounds like a pretty bad mistake on their part.

[josphy]

Just have your credit card company reverse the charges.

[lloyd_chan]

Same thing happened to me late last year. A&I had in the past offered a choice of optical B&W proofing or Frontier proofing for B&W; one had to state one's preferance in the order. When I asked why I was given Frontier proofs instead of optical prints, I was informed that their optical printer broke down during their move back to Highland. Subsequently, it seems they gave up optical proofing for B&W altogether. If you see their new directory of services, it states that all B&W proofing is now done on a Frontier. Disappointing.

 

Im hoping dr5 will start their planned optical B&W proofing service soon.

[robert himmelright]

I think what I'm most dissapointed by is that they want me to pay for them to be shipped, and the quality of the prints, not so much just that they're on color paper.

[feli]

In my experience the quality of their work has gone down hill in the past few years.

 

I've gotten C41 negs back from them that looked like they had been dragged across the

floor a few times. Scratched and filthy. They gave me every excuse in the book and in the

end insisted that I had scratched them myself, which is absolute nonsense.

 

Recently I've also had problems with their Light-jet prints, which suddenly started to come

back about 1/2 stop darker than before.

 

A few months ago I was up against a deadline and they developed a few rolls of 120 Tri-X

400 for me. The negs came back pink, which means they were underfixed or not washed

properly. That was the nail in the coffin for me and I'm looking for a new place to take my

work.

[mike_smith41]

www.wmphotoworks.com does B&W film with no problems so far. They proof or do contact sheets on a Noritsu mini-lab and get good, reasonably neutral prints. They will do enlargements on color paper for the lowest price, but also on B&W RC or even fiber paper.

[phototron]

I sent thing to them a whie back, very unimpressed. Do all my own now since I'm in school I can use a b/w lab all I want. Before I moved to Portland, OR I used a wonderful lab called Perfect Image. Small operation but if Martha is still around se takes in work from all over the place. Proofs whould run you but neg develepment is wonderful. Couldn't find a web site for her.

 

Perfect Image Photo Labs

1905 Terminal Dr

Richland, WA 99354

(509) 946-3272