New to film processing, how do I order?

Question

Hi!! So I’m brand new to film cameras and have my first roll that I want to send in for development. I have an order sheet printed out for Process One film developing but am confused on how to fill it out. My film is C41 35mm, 24 exp. I just want to get back uploaded scans of the photos, I don’t require anything else. What options do I choose for this? Also what does it mean to 1. Develop film 2. Cut and sleeve film and 3. What is the cheapest option for developing film? Does it usually cost more to just get prints or to just get scans? If anyone can help me I would be super appreciative ty!!!!

Answer 1

The form is confusingly laid out – I don't blame you for being confused. They should change a few things around for sure.

Once the film comes out of your camera, it must be developed. That's the name of the chemical process to turn the latent image on the film into a fixed image (and the film must be carefully protected from light until after this chemical process is completed). Your film should be developed using the C-41 process – it says so on the film cassette. (The other two main processes are the E-6 process and traditional black and white development.) Film that uses the C-41 process is also known as print film – so the "Print Film" section on the form is relevant for you. You can ignore the section for "E6 Slide film". You can also ignore the section for "4x5 film" – that is a different film size to your 35mm film.

Once the film is developed in the C-41 process, you won't actually have your images just yet – another step is needed. That can either be printing photos using the film negatives, or scanning the film negatives to obtain digital images. Sounds like you are looking for the second option.

So you can ignore the checkboxes for "matte" and "glossy" because they relate to the finish of the paper when printing photos.

After the lab has developed your film, they will return it to you. This is so that you can use it to make reprints in future, or you might want to scan it yourself. Usually labs will cut the film strip into shorter sections of 6 or 7 frames, and put it inside plastic storage sheets like this. In some situations you might not want them to do this, so in that case you'd check the "Do not cut film" checkbox, and they would then return the full uncut developed roll to you. Otherwise, you want the "Cut & sleeve film" option. These 2 options are mutually exclusive, and I think you should be choosing one or the other.

"Develop Only" is as it says – they will put your film through the chemical development process, but they won't scan or print any photos. That's not what you want. You want your film scanned, and you want digital images made available for download, so you should tick the box that says "Upload scans to Dropbox instead of saving on CD". Confusingly, I am not sure whether you should also tick the earlier box that says "Scan to CD". Of course you don't want a CD, but I think this box is really just to tell the lab if you want the photos scanned at all.

If there's any confusion, I think the safest option is to just write what you want in the Special Instructions box.

Answer 2

The clash of digital and numeric technologies resulted in a somewhat confusing form!

In your case, since you have a 35 mm roll, you are only concerned about the first row under "Service Desired": Print film (35 mm)

Options are then:

• To only get the film back (no photo prints)
• To get photo prints back (including the film)
• To get digitalized photos back

Since you want the last, I would set the print quantity to 0 and tick the "Scan to CD" box to indicate you only want digital outputs.

In the "Special Instructions" I would then tick "Upload scan to Dropbox instead of saving to CD" so that I can download those photos instead of receiving a wasteful CD.

With these settings, the photos should end up being put online for (only) you to download.

Hope this helps.