Photo Labs for Film & Print Processing
Process & Scan Cibachrome Prints Where to buy film
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Introduction top
These are the labs I use for my own work, but honestly I haven't wasted time with film since 2015 when digital cameras hit 24MP, because I get far better results from digital — or my iPhone — today. While I love black-and-white shot on my HASSELBLAD, 35mm is foolish unless you delicately want grainy, off-color photos.
Most are local to me, and they all do loads of mail order from around the USA and around the world.
Even though I'm always in such a rush that I drive to the lab to see what I got, postage still costs a lot less than car expenses, even if you only live a few miles away. From 1973 - 1993 I used to mail all of my film away to Kodak, Fairlawn, New Jersey for Kodachrome processing.
Many shooters FedEx their stuff to labs while they're out on location.
As lesser labs close, these better labs are getting busier. Tell them I sent you.
Great American Photo Lab a.k.a. North
Coast Photographic Services (NCPS) top
5451 Avenida Encinas,
Suite D
Carlsbad, California 92008
(760) 931-6809
Example photos: Death Valley 2009 , Route 66 2009, NCPS Scan Quality compared to DSLRs, Nikon 35Ti versus DSLRs, Yosemite in Winter 2011 and Yosemite, Fall 2013 All these were developed and scanned by NCPS.
I've been using NCPS since 2006.
NCPS develops any and all kinds of film, from E-6 slides to C-41 color prints to real silver black-and-white negatives.
NCPS develops all formats from at least 35mm through at least 8x10." I've even dropped off obsolete, odd-sized roll film and they've been able to run it through their dip-and-dunk system.
They do the cleanest job I've ever gotten on my chromes. There are never any drying or squeegee marks on my film, and never any pinholes.
I learned another secret about them: they process all the film as dip-and-dunk, even their C-41(color print) and B&W. Everyone else, even pro labs, process C-41 in roller-transport minilab processors, which tends to lead to the scratches every other lab has to lie about. NCPS runs even their C-41 with the same care as they run E-6, with 1/3º temperature tolerances.
NCPS uses Fuji chemistry.
Here's what makes NCPS really special: for just a few bucks, they will scan complete rolls of 35mm and 120 film at very high resolution. In just a few hours, I've got everything I shot on a DVD. I load it into my computer, and Bingo!, I've got 25MP digital images (or better) from every frame I shot.
Not only are my shots already digitized and in my computer in the blink of an eye, I still have the original film and the DVD as dual, non-erasable backups. I'm done before I even started.
I find shooting film and having everything scanned as it's developed easier for me than dealing with digital cameras, chargers and computers while in the field. Shooting film is easier in the field, all my backups are already done for me when I return, and it looks better. End of story.
But wait! NCPS also does large and huge format printing on just about every medium, including great looking glossy plastic material.
NCPS also can print optically from B&W negatives onto real B&W paper in a darkroom, but only for very large jobs. Everything else they'll scan and print.
If you want prints, try NCPS, too. NCPS makes extraordinary prints from film or digital files at any size up to 20" or 24" wide by unlimited length. Want a 24" x 10-foot stitched panorama on incredible 3D metallic-backed paper? NCPS does this every day, and the metallic paper of course looks great even in 4x6" prints.
The cool thing behind all this is that the owner and founder of NCPS is also an avid working photographer, just like us. He wants his own stuff to look great just as much as we do.
Adorama Printique top
42 West 18th Street
New York, New York 10011
(888) 216-6400
Adorama's in-store lab does a ton of online printing.
If you prefer Kodak paper, especially the metallic materials, give Adorama a shot. I've tried them and the prints are great, even thought I prefer the Fuji materials used by other labs for my crazy color shots.
They don't develop film.
Adorama hand-makes photo books on real Fuji Crystal Archive paper. They are unique in that ever page is a centerfold: they use a unique binding method so that each pair of pages opens flat.
Also, as you'd expect from New York City, Adorama's print prices are unbeaten, and get even better when they run specials.
Cibachrome Prints top
Ciba is an obsolete process I first used in the 1980s when it was the best we had for printing by optical projection from transparency film in an enlarger.
It went obsolete around year 2000 when it became simpler and far more flexible and controllable to print from digital files electronically. We can make much better prints when we can use a computer to optimize our images.
Cibachrome was what we called this back when it was still relevant; today it's been called Ilfochrome for quite some time. It was popular in home darkrooms back in the 1980s because its chemistry was much simpler than other color print processes.
Cibachrome was the most spectacular print material in existence in the 1980s. It lasted forever on display, but was sensitive to fingerprint and water damage. Back in olden days it was also popular as it printed directly from transparencies without needing to scan or make internegatives.
Today I’d suggest printing with what are called aluminum prints, which have the same ultra glossy look of Ciba, and are far more durable and easier to hang for exhibition. They're printed on relatively indestructible thin sheets of aluminum! These are probably far more permanent as well, and far more practical for printing and creation with modern workflows — Ciba requires a transparency original, not a digital file.
Ciba only makes sense if you’re printing directly from a transparency in an enlarger, and then requires all sorts of tedious manipulation like contrast masks to get a decent print; you can't just print from most transparencies and expect a beautiful result. Ciba is an awful process; aluminum looks better today.
If you insist on wanting to have someone else make your prints (I've made my own Ciba prints but don't do it for anyone else), some readers years back pointed me to The Lab in Burbank (Los Angeles), California, whose website still says they make these as of July 2025. I've seen prints made by these guys, and they were spectacular. They printed the mural on display at the Mono Lake Committee.
Buying Film top
To buy whatever film I want at the right price, I've bought it mail-order from B&H and Adorama since 1975!
My local store never had exactly what I wanted, even back then.
Unlike digital, where everything is pretty much the same and therefore easy to find, film comes in so many types, sizes and packaging that you'll rarely find what you want at retail, and never at the right price if you do.
Even if you only shoot Velvia, you'll see over two-dozen different items at each link above. Multiply that by the zillion kinds of film, and you'll see why no store other than B&H and Adorama are ever likely to have what you want by walking in.
Processing Mailers top
Although we expect color print film and 1-hour processing on every street corner, I haven't bought my film locally for over 30 years, and for much of my life I've mailed my film away for processing!
Back in the 1970s and 1980s I shot Kodachrome, which I mailed to Kodak's labs in New Jersey or Hollywood for processing. There never was local processing for Kodachrome, and still isn't, unless you're in Parsons, Kansas.
In 1990 when I started to shoot Fuji Velvia (E-6), I first used Fuji processing mailers because I could get them cheap. Even today, you can get them for $5 each at B&H. They don't include the direct-to-digital scanning I get at NCPS, but we all can get pro-level film and processing as close as our mailboxes as I did for decades.
It's only been recently that I've bothered with retail processing, because I like to see what I've shoot immediately as I'm reviewing a camera or lens.
If you're not in a rush, it's a lot easier and cheaper to do it by mail. If I lived in another city, I could mail my film to NCPS, with scanning, just the same.
Heck, If I wasn't always so curious to see what I shot, even living close to NCPS, I still consider using the mail instead because I'd save a lot of drive-time.
Postage costs a lot less than car expenses, even if you live only several miles away and even if you consider your driving time of no value.
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Ken.