The 6 Best Places To Develop Film In Manchester
Throughout years of shooting film in Manchester, I’ve discovered some of the best places to get film processed and scanned.
Luckily, Manchester has a lot of great options when it comes to getting film developed. From Come Through Lab to Tripp Works, I’ll run you through all the options, pricing, quality and turnaround time to help you to decide where to go.
Come Through Lab
Location
Come Through Lab
84 Silk Street
Ancoats
Manchester
M4 6BJ
Scanner – Noritsu HS1800
What They Do
Come through lab is a great film-processing lab that also produces high-quality prints, which may be worth looking at if you’re ever looking to sell or show your work.
Come Through Lab develops colour and black and white film at 35mm/120mm and they can even produce contact sheets if you want.
Pricing
Pricing for colour film development and scanning starts at £6 and goes to £12, which depends on the quality. Black and white costs a little bit more as per usual. You can post your film to the lab or drop it off, it just depends on where you’re located! They’ll then send you a Wetransfer of the digital files once they’re ready.
If you want to find out more about Come Through Labs pricing then take a look here.
Tripp Works
Location
PO BOX 899, Stockport, SK5 9BE.
Scanner – Fuji Frontier SP3000
What They Do
Tripp Works is another brilliant film processing lab that’s actually located in Stockport, just a couple of miles south of Manchester. Tripp Works provide film processing and scanning, they also produce Giclée prints which is worth remembering!
Pricing
Pricing for colour film processing and scanning starts at £6 for low quality and £9 for high quality. Black and white is £10.50.
I haven’t used Trippworks myself but I know people that do and I’m really confident that they’re top notch! Well worth giving a go especially if you’re in the Stockport area. It looks like you can only send or drop off to PO BOX 899, Stockport, SK5 9BE.
If you want to try out Tripp Works and get more info on their pricing then take a look here.
DS Colour Labs
Location
Package up your films with your Full Name and Order ID and send to: DS Colour Labs, 720 Wilmslow Road, Didsbury, Manchester, M20 2DW.
Scanner Used – Fuji Frontier
What They Do
I’ve never used DS Colour Labs and I hadn’t heard of it until I started this article, it’s definitely a place that’s worth noting because it seems like they’ve been around for a while which usually indicates quality.
DS Colour Labs is located in Didsbury but it seems like another place that you have to post your film to.
Pricing
DS Colour labs is a bit pricey, so I wonder if that’s because the high-quality scans are super high quality. For development and scanning of colour film, that ranges from £7 (standard) all the way up to £15 (largest quality), which is a considerable amount for a 35mm colour film dev and scan.
It’s hard for me to personally judge DS Colour Labs, so they may be amazing, but they suggest that their ‘high quality’ scan is ideal for A3 printing. I use Filmdev which is also a postal processing and scanning lab and their high-quality scan is about £8.50 and I could at least print that at A1.
For more info on DS Labs pricing, take a look here!
Advanced Photo
Location
Unit 10 St Anns Arcade, Manchester, United Kingdom – This is located in a sort of small indoor shopping area.
What they do
I think Advanced Photo could be a bit of an unsung hero when it comes to Manchester’s film processing scene. It seems to be one of the only places that has a 1 hour turnaround time, now usually that would indicate that the quality isn’t amazing however they also seem to produce low, medium and high quality scans.
Pricing
I could only find a Facebook page for Advanced Photo, but a quick call helped me confirm the pricing – Low quality is £8.99, medium £10.99 and large is £19.99.
Advanced Photo is also a great place to buy film and it’ll definitely be cheaper than Max Speilmann (who I’ll discuss later).
I think Advanced Photo is the ideal place to go for anyone that’s visiting Manchester and wants their film processing quickly and fairly inexpensively (if at low quality).
Pollard Street Processing
Location
Unit 26, Wellington House
Scanners – Noritsu V30 Colour processor – Fuji Frontier SP3000 – Imacon Flextight Virtual Drum Scanner (Contact for use)
What They Do
Pollard Street Processing develop and scan film to different standards depending on what you want. They also allow access to a drum scanner which can produce very high quality scans. Pollard Street Processing is a bit more of a community style processors and it has some super cost effective plans.
Pricing
Pollard Street Processing have a range of prices, for colour processing and scanning at low quality the cost is £5, for a high quality TIFF it’s £9. Otherwise, to use the drum scanner, it’s £20 per hour and a technician will be on hand to help you out.
You can drop off or post your film to Pollard Street, which is a nice aspect, as some people like to speak with someone so they know what they’re getting.
I actually have used Pollard Street and I plan on trying out their drum scanner on some of my best negatives to see what they’re like in super high quality. They’re a great little place and I’d definitely give them a go if you haven’t already.
Max Speilmann (The Last Resort)
There’s a Max Speilmann right by Piccadilly gardens which has a long turn around time (probably about 5 days). This place is the last resort, it’s a high street store, the scan quality is bad and the cost is massive. But it does exist and you can get film developed there, I wouldn’t ever go here though.
Where Should You Go?
I think if you’re consistently getting film developed then you should go to either Come Through, Pollard Street Processing or Tripp Works. These are great great labs to go to and they’re all really reasonably priced.
If you like to have a really quick turn around then I’d probably go to somewhere like Advanced Photo who also have pretty good pricing on low and regular quality scans.
I would avoid Max Speilmann’s at all costs.
