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From: sasaki@harvard.ARPA (Marty Sasaki)
Newsgroups: net.rec.photo
Subject: Re: automatic processing?
Message-ID: <421@harvard.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 14-Oct-85 03:00:06 EDT
Article-I.D.: harvard.421
Posted: Mon Oct 14 03:00:06 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 15-Oct-85 07:29:49 EDT
References: <11900002@uicsl> <734@sfmag.UUCP>
Reply-To: sasaki@harvard.UUCP (Marty sasaki)
Organization: Harvard Science Center
Lines: 49

As mentioned here, almost all of the discount places use the same
automagic processing and printing machines which should mean that you
get good results from everyone. Along with problems with keeping the
machines tuned up and with keeping things clean, there is the problem
of replenishment of chemicals.

It turns out that rather than using the processing chemicals only
once, they can be reused again and again. In order to restore the
potency of the chemicals, replenishers are added. The quantity of
replenisher, as well as when they should be added, is determined using
tests. There is also a limit to how many times you can replenish
before having to dump all of the chemicals.

A Southern California processor was well known for pushing these
limits. They would run a few extra batches through before dumping the
chemicals. Since making the tests and adding the replenishers are time
consuming (apparently you need to stop the machines to add
replenisher) they would increase the interval between adding
replenisher. In order to make up for using up more of the chemistry,
they would add extra in the beginning so that the last few rolls
wouldn't be so bad.

There were also rumors that the processing temperature was increased,
shortening processing times, and allowing more prints/rolls of film to
be processed in a given amount of time.

Of course this playing with processing means that the color balance
could be off wildly, or off just a little bit, depending on how lucky
you were. 

Not all labs use such machinery though. One of my classmates at school
worked one summer in a "professional" processing lab. His job was to
load the film onto reels. (Imagine sitting in a dark room for hours at
a time loading stainless steel reels.) He would place the reels onto
racks which were then lowered into large tanks. Agitation took place
by bubbling a burst of nitrogen through tubes on the bottom of the
tank.

For the price, I think that Kodak can't be beat (assuming we are
talking about Kodak film) for processing. I send all of my color
material to them. The only thing that I don't like is that I get my
negatives cut up into two and three frame pieces which are hard to
handle, and don't always fit neatly into my negative pages.
-- 
----------------
  Marty Sasaki				net:   sasaki@harvard.{arpa,uucp}
  Havard University Science Center	phone: 617-495-1270
  One Oxford Street
  Cambridge, MA 02138