good day...
i was hoping some of you folks here in dallas could point me to a lab up here that does custom dark room work. it seems the fine art of printmaking is lost, at least at the labs i've visited.
i'll not mention any specific names publicly, however, my experiences with two highly regarded pro labs here in the metroplex have been very, VERY disappointing. the last straw was when i noticed that one of the prints i had ordered was missing. the printer was called up and said she could take care of it. ten minutes later, before i was done inspecting the prints they did make, i was presented with the missing enlargement. how can they call that custom work, if clearly all that was done was stick the negative in the enlarger and quickly make a print using one average value... am i asking too much, but i thought the reason one pays for 'custom' work was so that a trained printer would closely examine the print and make decisions about what needed a little more time and what needed a little less. it's been a while since i worked in a darkroom, but i seldom made a print that was simply one value across the board. when i asked the lab what made this work custom, they said simply that i was cropping a bit off, even though i was keeping the same aspect ratio (4x5 neg to 8x10 print), so it was a custom job. sigh.
am i asking to much of a lab? does one have to have their own darkroom to get true, custom prints made?
please let me know if you know of any good, custom labs that actually does custom work here in dallas, less i be forced to convert the laundry room into a darkroom!
thanks, scott
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