A word of advice for spanish people on El Corte Ingles photofinish services

Hi everyone, this post is for spanish people only. The big national shopping malls "El Corte Ingles" has the usual photofinish service, where you can develop and print your film. El Corte Ingles has slightly higher prices than the rest of shops, and it's supposed that a better service will be found....

...unfortunetely that's not the case... Last Sunday I went to the El Corte Ingles center in Alcalá de Henares (near Madrid). I gave them two rolls of Kodak Ultra 400 35mm..... well, the prints I received where the worst I've ever seen. I was initially upset because they were my two first rolls using my new Nikon F80 (more on this on future posts). All skies were completely washed outs, colours pale and with a high blue cast, even some unsharp prints..... Unbelievable.... Price was, not exactly cheap.... 12€ per roll!!!.

I took the negatives and scanned them with my, not very good, Microtek 35mm film scanner..... I was more than surprised of the results.... of course there were blue skies in my shots... and very saturated colours... that right out of the scan....

...I supposed modern minilabs are capable of much more good results than the ones I saw with my prints... so I can only think of El Corte Ingles being completely negligent with their photofinish service.... Of course a lot of people would blame the camera, the film, the photographer........................

...so, My suggestion is.... please please please..... AVOID leaving your film rolls to El Corte Ingles.... If you cannot get rid of them, tell them just to develop your rolls and give it back just the negatives.... then use a film scanner or a scanning service to get photographs to be printed anywhere else.

And if someone from El Corte Ingles reads this.... please, take jour job more seriously.... you're playing with the memories of people... don't let them washed out!!!.