J&F Photo Lab Inc. — Attraction in Los Angeles

I have been a loyal customer for film developing and scanning here in J&F for 2 years. The stuff was always nice and welcoming and they send photos very fast. However, I guess the speed comes with sacrificing the quality, because they're completely relying on automatic settings of the scanners.

For a while I thought that I just shoot crooked, but after I started hand printing my photos, I realized that a lot of my 120 scans that I get from them are off center. Not just cropped but shifted to the right, down or up.

I brought up that issue ones and just asked them to keep it in mind and center the photos better, the response was that they always center them and will never crop too much from one side.

It happened again and this time I really wanted a few of this shots to be scanned correctly, as I don't want to crop them in to even it out, so I showed them the proof that they are not centered, the girl that works there was nice and said that yeah, that's just what Noritsu scanner does, they don't manually center it, but the scanner itself just pulls it and often crops them incorrectly.

I asked them very politely to rescan just a few photos if not on Noritsu, then at least on a different scanner Frontier (which I tried before, but would get inconsistent colors and the contrast is way too high for me) She was about to charge me for rescanning. I asked if they can do it for free, since there is an error on their part, she was very hesitant. I ended up just asking for rescan of one single photo. She went to talk to the manager and came back with an answer "no".

I was pretty confused. I spent so much money there over 2 years, I even sent to them multiple photographer friends as customers and they refuse to rescan a single photo, that has their error.

I don't think I can support this business anymore.

I attached their scan and my own at home scan on Epson printer, just so you can see the crop comparison. There's not much crop from the left side and the bottom, but a dramatic crop from the right side and top.

I don't mind if the photo would be slightly cropped in, I just want my subject to be centered like it's supposed to be. And I know for a fact that you can scan full frame on both scanners especially Frontier, you just need to change the settings, which is too much of a...

I literally spent thousands of dollars at this place and have never been treated with an ounce of the kindness and consideration and care that I have experienced at other film labs. On one instance, I brought in over 40 rolls of film. When I received the scans back I noticed the scans were not up to the standards I required and I explained that I was in Africa traveling and asked if they could hold the negatives for me until I got back. They weren't willing to work with me other than re-scanning the photos for an additional price per roll which would have been another several hundred dollars. I was in and out of wifi on this trip and when I finally made contact I found out that they threw away my negatives. I don't expect special treatment, but throwing away the negatives of someone who spent hundreds of dollars multiple times, and then $1400 at once, is just heartless business in my mind. Film is an art form and customers are the livelihood of a business, I don't know why this shop operates with no respect to the soul or creativity, passion, and investment, of the artists who develop their film there, but it's a dangerous game to put your film in their hands if any issues arise. Long story short. This is a very cold and corporate energy coming from a very quaint and small shop. Definitely a good place to go for quick scans, but if you are looking for a shop you can grow with and build a relationship as you invest in your art and give them your business, find another place to call home. The devastation of losing the negatives just...

I had high expectations for this lab. A friend of mine had had film developed/scanned here, which had me thinking this was an ideal place. I visited 3x here, the first 2x times everything was fine but the third time they gave me far from subpar scans.

I reached out almost immediately to address the issue and requested simply for a refund on the scans (developing was fine; the film was still usable) but they refused to take accountability, repeatedly trying to suggest the issue was on my end.

I did at home tests and even showed several other labs/technicians the results of their scans which they all agreed the quality was nowhere reflective of the film itself and was the most likely the result of the lab’s technology or technicians or both.

For the amount they charge here, you should expect to have at least passable results and if not, at least be accountable when things go wrong. Don’t allow this company to gaslight you like they’ve done myself and many of the other people in...