This is the story that explains why I do not like the incompetent guys at photo labos who take money for spoiling my photos.

Normally (well, before I got the digital camera), I take pictures using Fuji Provia 100, wich I then take to some photo shop for developing and scanning.
I always ask for the highest quality they can get (which is usually something around 3000x2000 in TIFF format), and I always have to pay 50% more for this "unusual order" (although it does not make any difference to the scanner).

I was so dissatisfied with one of the films that I decided to scan the same film at a different shop.
This way I got some material for comparison.

Here are some of the results (no processing was made, these are exactly the files I got from labos, just resized and saved as JPG):

Labo A Labo B
The colors are awful, but the picture is clean (no specks and no dust).
There is a thin horizontal line over the whole picture, just below the middle. Lots of specs and dust.
Wrong colors, bad light, but clean.
Lots of specks and dust. Thin black line at the left edge. Thin vertical line through the whole picture, just right from the middle.
NOT ABLE TO SCAN !!!
Again thin line acros the whole picture. Lots of specks and dust.
Too light, but clean.
Again thin vertical line and dust. A little bit too dark.
NOT ABLE TO SCAN !!!
Flatten colors (looks like from Commodore 64).
Too dark.

It was really the same film...

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