My local options for printing have drastically been reduced, since one of the two photo labs in my area went out of business. Unfortunately (but typical)the lab that closed catered more to the fine art photographers, rather than the commercial and advertising sector. This has resulted in my having far less options for photographic materials and processing methods. I must now turn to mail order photo labs to have my printing done. I can't even get a Ilfochrome or Cibachrome print done locally, a sad state indeed. My question is this, I have some Scala 6x7 transparencies that I wish to have printed to either 16x20 or 20x24 inch size. Can anyone recommend a quality mail order photo finisher that can produce high quality prints from Scala transparencies, I'd rather deal with a lab that has a good amount of experience printing high quality images from black and white positives. Any first hand experience and or recommendations for a high quality lab would be appreciated, thanks.

-- Robert Pellegrino (bob.pellegrino@juno.com), December 11, 2000

Answers

Scala scans well. You might consider obtaining prints from Scala via a quality scan and digital printing. Several years ago I had some Illfochome prints from Scala made. It's pretty difficult to keep a slight color cast from being introduced by this process. I'd bet the digital route will give better results. Other posts have talked about good labs for scanning and digital printing.

-- Larry Huppert (Larry.Huppert@mail.com), December 13, 2000.