First off let me tell you that I have been doing weddings for the past 20 years.
I know the labs like to tell you that they are not responsible for any damage to any negs and all that BUT if the lab was a reputable lab they would have taken care of the problem with the negs for you, there is a product, I cant remember what it is called, if you brush it on the negs before you print them it masks the scratches, and I mean just like they where never there.
Second thought when they said they where going to just take them to Wal-Mart, or scan them, unless you had an agreement that they owned the negs you should have explained to them then and there that you owned the copy write to the photos and that taking them to Wal-Mart, or scanning them was against the law and you would take THEM to court, in fact that might be a good idea even now, if they do take you to court you could explain that had they not broken the law by making there own reprints of copy writed material you could have seen the problem and taken care of it for them! (copy write infringement is the hardest thing I deal with in our "digital" tech life's)
And lastly, it has always been my policy that if there is a problem like scratched negatives its all taken care of before the customer even sees the finished product, if that cant happen then I tell them exactly what the problem is and show them, they never ever leave my home to go to theirs and unexpectedly discover a problem that I was already aware of!
One last note, it has been my experience that these kind of people are few and far between!
Terry M
----- Original Message ----- From: "James B. Davis" <jbdavis@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "List for Photo/Imaging Educators - Professionals - Students" <photoforum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, February 23, 2005 6:49 AM
Subject: Re: weddings (might be a bit long-sorry)
On Wed, 23 Feb 2005 08:24:14 -0500, Shyrell Melara <shyrellmelara@xxxxxxxxx> wrote/replied to:
That's when she says (about the enlargements), "I have a scanner at home so I can do my own." (What?) I thought, she has a scanner, she's cheating me out of my potential income, she can fix the pictures herself. So what does she do? She goes to Wal-Mart and has the enlargements done there, discovers the lines, call me up and screams about getting all her money back or she's going to take me to court.
Woah, you gave them the negatives?
-- Jim Davis, Nature Photography, http://easternbeaver.com/ Motorcycle Relay Kits
