If you are remotely serious about your photography, don't cut corners, go for the best printing around - try Boots.
It may sound silly coming from me, a Professional, to take your film to dear old 'aunty' Boots and trust it to them, but wait.. listen.
It is one place that I can trust ... Read review
European leader in on-line photo processing. 30 FREE photo prints upon registration. Don't miss this chance to test our services and print your photos for FREE. Have a look at our gift items to be personalised with your own photos.
Advantages: excellent consistency of prints, new digital technology - just simply the best Disadvantages: the price - but you do pay for quality
...film to dear old 'aunty' Boots and trust it to them, but wait.. listen.
It is one place that I can trust for consistency and high quality. Especially since they have recently re-kitted their main branches out with state-of-the-art Fuji digital equipment. There are times when I am out and about that I need to turn around a roll or two of film promptly - for a client to see proofs - or maybe to meet a deadline for the press. I have, ... ...processed well - thats where Boots come in!
2 - Processing is important
For the amateur in the U.K there is no better place to get your film developed and printed than at BOOTS. Yes, honestly. Like I said, they have invested in digital printing in many of there stores and YOU WILL SEE A DIFFERENCE. There is more detail in the light and dark areas of the prints. They are also able to compensate for any erors you may make in ... more
If you are remotely serious about your photography, don't cut corners, go for the best printing around - try Boots.
It may sound silly coming from me, a Professional, to take your film to dear old 'aunty' Boots and trust it to them, but wait.. listen.
It is one place that I can trust for consistency and high quality. Especially since they have recently re-kitted their main branches out with state-of-the-art Fuji digital equipment. There are times when I am out and about that I need to turn around a roll or two of film promptly - for a client to see proofs - or maybe to meet a deadline for the press. I have, in the past, been forced to just literally 'bung it in' to the local mini lab (the only one around) and suffered poor results. Well, sometimes not poor, but results that have you questioning whether your equipment is working correctly!
As an aside - if you will permit me - a couple of points, for any of you seriously interested in photography and want to improve the photos you take. Some may seem obvious, but believe me, how few people actually take these things 'on board' before they press that shutter.
1 - Use decent film You would be surprised at how much difference there is between cheap film and 'make' film. I always use FUJI. Occasionally KODAK or KONICA - never ever own brand or whatever. I know it is made by decent manufacturers, but it is a false economy. I was in picking up some prints the other day and an old man was expectantly collecting his photos too. Only 6 came out - he was very upset. The film was largely fogged, the pictures were of something important to him. I'm not saying it was the film's fault, but take your pictures on your camera, use decent film (I'd recommend FUJI 200 or 400 around £3 per roll)and finally get it processed well - thats where Boots come in!
2 - Processing is important For the amateur in the U.K there is no better place to get your film developed and printed than at BOOTS. Yes, honestly. Like I said, they have invested in digital printing in many of there stores and YOU WILL SEE A DIFFERENCE. There is more detail in the light and dark areas of the prints. They are also able to compensate for any erors you may make in exposure and the prints are NOTICEABLY sharper. OK you can get decent and cheap results from Truprint, Snappy Snaps, Bonus Photo whatever, but especially if the subject of the photos is important don't take the risk of sending them away - take them into a major branch of Boots, pick them up an hour later or next day and you WILL be happy with the results.
3 - Don't forget, it is not the Camera that takes the photos it's YOU OK - I'm a professional. I have to get results each and every time I go out on a job. My equipment therefore must be good and reliable. BUT if you have a decent compact camera and you don't try and take photos for which the camera wasn't designed i.e 35MM Compacts are NOT any good for Sports photos, NO THEY ARE NOT! Simply composed with a bit of thought you can take very nice photos of family, landscapes and so on. If you have an APS Camera it has a bit more flexibility too - in the panoramic mode and also if it has a built in zoom. Look and think before to take the picture - it IS Important.
Sorry for another 'aside', but a few days ago, I was waiting for my weekend's sports photos to be finished in my local High Street Boots and a little old lady was examining her rather faded and dull prints. Not ones, mind you that she had done at the Boots branch in question, but let's just say 'Brand X'. The young assistant was looking through them with her and suggested that he take one negative and print it up to see if there was any difference.
Around 10 minutes later he returned with the 'new' prints. You should have seen her face. The new print had detail, not in the original. It had COLOUR, rather than the muted dull effort of the first print and it was noticeably sharper. Now if her very basic prints can be brought to life like that - think what it could do for yours, just for a couple of pounds more (around £8-99 for 36 7"x5" prints Developed and printed on the hour).
I trust Boots and I have to get results. And my customers trust ME. Need I say more?
Advantages: Quick and Easy Self Service - Quality - Professional Disadvantages: Not the cheapest
...of my digital photos to Boots to get them printed.
Boots now have self service machines for digital photos, which allow either instant, 1 hour or 24 hour printing from various sources. This can be a memory card, a photo CD, or Infra-Red direct from a compatible phone or camera. This has 2 benefits over the old over the counter method, firstly you can keep the media that the photos are on, very useful if it's your only memory card, not to mention ... ...the computer.
I've used Boots for photo printing like this for many years, ever since I got a digital camera, and also used them when I had a normal camera as well. I've yet to have any problems, other than one incident a few years ago where photos were mixed up, but this was sorted quickly, and I, and the other person, got a free film and a refund. I will not hesitate to use them in future. A particular thing with Boots is the staff, who you feel ...
C-J-C 14.08.2008
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Boots - Photo Processing
Advantages: superb quality Disadvantages: not the cheapest
...Now why do i think Boots is the best place to go for photo developing,
point 1- All the boots minilabs are digital this means that the end results(the photo's)are of a higher quality.Some of the others have only just started to change there old optical machines for digital.
point 2-It's not just about having the best equipment you need to have the right people in place and they need to be suitably trained.Boots have people working in there minilabs ... ...shots,if this is the case Boots will try to correct your photo's and if they can't correct them they can give advice so that you don't make the same mistakes again.
point 4-They grade each individual photograph checking that it has the correct colour balance,the right density and there are no scratches or marks on the photographic paper.
point 5-They offer a lot of choice on service times (1 hour service if you need them quick,24 hr ,3 day or 6 ...
phensh 13.04.2006
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Boots - Photo Processing
Advantages: Really clear colourful pics Disadvantages: Expensive but worth it
...I take the films to Boots and have them done in an hour.
So first day back at work, I dropped my films into Boots in my lunch hour. They were really busy at the counter; but I did not have to wait long. When I explained how important the films were, I was offered what they call "Special memories".The film is ready in an hour, they gave me the choice of print sizes; I went for the 7x5" medium.
You do pay a bit more for this service; but when I got ...
Cracker 19.08.2000
· Read full review
Review of Boots - Photo Processing
Advantages: Its Boots - you can trust them Disadvantages: Staff many not have the best training in the world
...offer on disposable cameras in Boots before I left - a damn good deal.
Once back I headed straight for boots to get the films processed. Now I don't like spending much money so I did not opt for the 1-hour film-processing package for nearly £8 a film so I went for the overnight package. Which, to be fair was still pretty expensive £4.99 each. That is on top of the original £7 for the camera. I was actually impressed by the quality of the pictures. ... ...I had paid a fiver for one of my films but had only gotten 22 out of the 27 pictures.I am going back to get the rest done, but I shouldn't really have to.
I would recommend going to Boots for your film developing, just watch out for inept staff! ...
the_wise_camel 28.08.2001
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Boots - Photo Processing
Advantages: Competative prices, good loyalty scheme. Disadvantages: Inconsistent level of quality of finished prints
...quality of your prints from Boots depends entirely on who is working the day you go in. I have had perfect prints and on one occasion I had 6 films printed and every single one was printed back to front. so any writing was backwards, people and objects were in opposite places. These films happened to be from a graduation day and as you can well imagine were important to the family. Thankfully after hefty words with the manager, the photos were reprinted ... ...an Advantage Card, ( the Boots loyalty points card) I was likely to get a large amount of my money back in points. On the other hand, however, I have only praise for the Boots online Digital Photo Centre. My digital prints were perfect, well exposed, exactly as I had intended them to come out. Having used other online developers including Snapfish and Truprint, I would certainly stick to Boots online, as I have had to return prints to the others ...
Jenny28 02.06.2007
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Boots - Photo Processing
Similar reviews »
Reviews which might be of interest for "Boots - Photo Processing"
Advantages: Quality products all under one roof Disadvantages: None
writing. The sign was actually based on a design made by one of Jesse's sign writers in the 1870's.
Like I said, Boots were primarily known for their pharmacy which still exists to this day. They are generally at the back of each store and offer a prescription service. I have found that they always have the medicine you need on hand and will package it up for you within 15 minutes which is not a bad wait time at all. They always have a qualified pharmacist on staff to answer any questions you may have. They now offer a free repeat prescription service where the drugs are sent straight to them from the doctors so saving you time and effort.
Boots has now diversified quite a bit from the old days to offer lots more services such as health/beauty, Boots Opticians, one-hour photoprocessing to name but a few. In fact I believe Boots are great ...
Spottydog11 24.09.2008
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Boots
In my humble opinion, Truprint is the spankiest company that ever lived. I have a bit of a photo obsession, in fact it could prove to be rather bankrupting were it not for the lovely helpful people at Truprint. For example, I arrived home from my month long holiday round the Mediterranean last year (it's hard being a student) carrying a large red fluffy carpet (from Delphi you know, but that's another story) an exciting suntan, a bottle of strange liqueur given to me by a raving Spanish man and fifteen camera films to develop. In the old days, before I discovered the wonders of Truprint, these would probably have languished in the bottom of a drawer until I had scraped together a small fortune with which to fund my trip to Boots extortionate processing labs.
TRUPRINT WHO?
Truprint are a mail order (and now online) photoprocessing ...
Advantages: small & lightweight, excellent image quality, good menus, battery life Disadvantages: small view finder, no ISO indicator, LCD difficult to see outdoors
- with digital you see your images straight from the camera, and can zoom in close on your PC to see how sharp your photo REALLY is. Whereas with the 35mm route, my photos used to come back from Boots after being processing by a machine that auto-corrects exposure problems. Plus everything looks sharp on a 5"x7" print! So I had to tighten up my photo taking skills a little, but DSLR is an excellent way to practice - you can seen instantly what works and what doesn't.
A couple of months on, and all is good. I am really happy with my photos and the 350D is a pleasure to use. I use the kit lens, which is OK for price but can get a little soft if not used at f8-f11, but try to use my old 28-105mm when I can. This gives consistently sharp images. I shoot predominantly in RAW because I find it better suited to post-processing, but the fine JPEG ...
parrydave 06.09.2005
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Canon EOS 350D
