Wal*Mart has its goods and bads. I understand that they're under contract with Fuji to maintain Fuji's high standards for general processing, and to use the latest equipment as part of that. For processing, if you're not satisfied with Wal*Mart, years ago I used Mystic Photo Lab in CT. They did a fine enough job as far as I can tell and their prices were very reasonable. Unfortunately, with the advent of 1-hr labs and such most people won't wait for something like Mystic. Before I got more conscientious and professional I also used the grocery store, which was speedier and about the same price. The prints were awful at 3x but at 4x the color was pretty accurate and the film wasn't particularly more dirty than what I get from Kodak for slide processing right now. As for slide film processing, the Slideprinter in Denver, P. O. Box 9506, Denver, CO 80209, is fine, as is their printing direct from the slides. But in the last two weeks my local film processor has gotten a new machine which will produce RC prints directly from slides as well. In addition, in the same time period the same people have acquired a machine that will print RC prints from any digital medium. So lately I've been doing my own scanning, preparing the files for printing, burning them to CD and taking the CD over there for output as RC prints. The price and time are very appealing. Finally, when I emerged from Wal*Mart last Tuesday I observed a poster announcing their new print-from-digital service, presumably a similar machine to the one at my local processor. These machines are aimed at the new digital point and shoot crowd who just want to hand over their flash cards and get a fistful of prints of their pix. The fate of film? Well, we can debate that for a while and maybe when we're done debating we'll have an answer.....
