Here's how it started. I got this offer from Seattle Film Works to process my film for a reasonable price
it included scans of each photo which would be available on their web site. Well, I put it aside
and thought to myself "maybe I would do it, probably not though." When I worked as an assistant
manager at a photo developing store in college, we had many a horror story about Seattle Film Works. People would
use Seattle Film Works's free film and bring them to us to process. Back then they were using excess movie film
and it required Seattle Film Works to process the pictures (since it wasn't a C-41 process). So this ad says they now
use C-41 process film and that they will happily do other film as well.
So Laura and I go off to Alaska and I go to grab the film on the way out (I usually use Fuji NDS160 from
B & H Photo). I only had 3 rolls left! Agh! I guess
I will use the Seattle Film Works film.
We returned and as I was still smarting from all of the money I had spent having Kodak put
all of the wedding photos to CD, I thought I might try Seattle Film Works (I estimated they would save me about a
hundred dollars). Off goes the film.
A week later I get an email from Seattle Film Works telling me my photo scans were available on their web site and that I
would need their software. Cool I thought. Go to web site and download the file. Cool I
thought. Download their software, install it, and open my photo files. They open up in a
nice presentation of all the photos. Cool I thought. Then I had a look at the scans.
The scans were crappy. They were out of focus and absent of any detail. Of course, I blamed my self
at first. Did I take crappy pictures? The camera auto-focuses; I rechecked other pictures I did
and reminded myself how good those were. Maybe these were ones done with Seattle Film Works's film. That could be
it. Then I get the rest of the scans (I didn't know which scans went with which film; so I had
to wait until I got them all). They were all crappy. Then I tried to save a few scans from Seattle Film Works's
software so that I could put them here in my photo gallery web site. Man is it a pain in the butt. I
couldn't believe that anyone would put out such a ridiculous piece of software. Come on! It is
for viewing digital versions of photos; why would you not make it very easy to save to JPEG?
The scans were horrible. The JPEGs were horrible. I held out hope that when I received the actual CDs
the scans on them would surely be better. The physical photos, the CDs, and the negatives all came
about another week later. The prints looked just like the scans; horrible. I loaded one of
the CDs. Once again the software made it ridiculously hard to save the images (idiots!). The scans
on the CDs were just like the scans; horrible.
I damn near cried. Ruined. 6 rolls of crap.
Currently the negatives have been shipped to Kodak for scanning at $1.19 a piece (rather than $11 extra
for an entire roll of 36).
So if the Kodak versions of the scans come back correctly, I will follow up on my damnation of
Seattle Film Works, their film, and their processing. Until then, I would advise you not to
use their product or their services. Check back in a week or two to see what happens.
