This is actually the second time that I am trying to write this article. The first one disappeared after I submitted it. Not sure what happened, but I don't have enough time or energy to give all the details of the first one, so this one will be the cliff notes version. If the other one magically appears, then you can read the whole story on that one.

So, in a past blog, I mentioned the photography snob. The store that I am talking about is Adray (which is a local chain) in Canton, MI. I have also been to the Ann Arbor store and have bought studio stuff, a medium format camera, and my Kodak 8500 from their Dearborn location. So, I have been pretty loyal to their store (I could have gotten the 8500 for cheaper online).

So, I had sent off my prints. Picked them up, went home and realized that the medium format negs were not with them. After a hassle of a phone conversation, the dude finally realized that they were still in his store. So, I looked at my proofs, went back the next day and ordered 5x7's of 4 of them.

A week went by, and I went in to pick them up. While there, I asked the guy behind the counter about their negative scanning service (which I am looking to do for a project I am working on). I asked him what format they come back as and what resolution they are at. He doesn't know, so he calls somebody who does. He comes back with the answer of: "They are about a 6 meg file". Yep. That was helpful. Not exactly instilling confidence. So, I decided to move on. So, he hands me my enlargements. I have to request that he goes back and gets the negatives (they obviously have a problem with that....) I look at the enlargements, and there are multiple dust spots on each one. First, Adray claims to be a "Professional Service" (you would think that quality control would catch the dust spots....they were quite obvious). Second, I was only in possession of the negatives for about 30 seconds- they never went home with me- I ordered the enlargements while I was standing in the store. The guy very casually said that they could reprint them for free if I wanted to come back in a week to pick them up. I figured that the third try they would probably finally completely lose the negative.

So, I decided to cut my loses. I won't be using Adray for photo processing anymore. Their staff is rude, not knowledgeable and obviously has no quality control on their printing.

My search still continues for a negative scanning service. I have found: www.digitalmemoriesonline.net which seems quite knowledgeable, and when asked "what format are they in?" they answer "Normally people prefer JPEG but for what you are doing I would recommend TIFF. We can even do Photoshop PSD's if you like." Of course, they are not local, but I don't care. I'll let you know how that works out.

So, Unfortunately, Adray photo processing gets a two coffee cup rating: