Disc Film Developing

Are you in the right place?

We’ve noticed that the word “develop” is often used to describe the service of printing and/or scanning negatives, when in the past it meant the chemical process to reveal the images on the film after having been exposed in the camera. Disc film developing is something we do but we also do Disc film scanning and Disc film printing. If you have Disc films that are a series of 15 small negative images in a circle around a hub, you’re in the wrong place on the website. Please go here for full details on that service…

Disc Film Scanning and Printing

If you have a black flat cassette with a round hub in the middle with the numbers 1 to 15 on the label side of the cassette and a little door on the back of the cassette then you are in fact “in the right place”. What you need is Disc film developing.

Price Policy and Currency

Prices and billing are in US dollars with one exception: Film Rescue Europe orders are billed in Euros**
When applicable, VAT, GST and/or PST  will be added to European and Canadian orders.
Minimum charge may be billed before processing, especially on orders with multiple films to process.
**Film Rescue Europe orders must be sent to and returned through the Netherlands location.

Prices

Step 1 – Processing and gallery of your pictures

Film will be processed in the safest possible manner – B&W negative – to give us the highest chance of salvaging an image.  If you’d like your color film in color, we can attempt that too but only after first processing safely into B&W negative. See “Film Acceleration” below for details. The negative is then scanned and manually Photoshopped™ , image by image — an important step that goes a long way to improving faded, long expired film. The images are then uploaded to a private gallery for client viewing and/or download as jpeg files; the jpegs are large enough to make snapshot sized prints.

Remember: we do not charge for processing if a film turns out blank or without recognizable pictures. Our definition of a recognizable image. Click here for more samples.

25.00

Film Acceleration (making your film color) – optional – add 10.00

For a complete explanation of this process and how to order

Disc film often doesn’t accelerate well into color. If color is very important to you, it may be possible to get better results by processing the film directly into color. Processing into B&W will always be the safest bet but if you want to attempt a straight to color process there are no additional charges and only the fee of 25.oo will apply but in requesting this, we don’t offer our normal “no image, no charge” guarantee. 10.00 will be charged on entirely blank films. To indicate this is what you want, please express that in section 9 of our order form.

Step 2 – Optional

You may order large, low compression digital files (on cd or downloadable) or prints by adding the item to the cart in your gallery.

Digital image Suitable for enlargement and image editing (on cd or downloadable file) or traditional style snapshot sized print

$0.99

We do offer 4×4, 4×5 & 4×6 traditional style snapshot prints

Payment

Since we don’t charge for processing if a still film is blank, we have special motivation to do the best possible work. If we don’t get pictures from your film, we make no money; the better the quality of the pictures we produce, the more likely a client is to place an order for those pictures. The final cost can only be estimated so we do not accept payment by check or money order. You may pay with Mastercard, Visa or Paypal.

Turn Around Time

Film is processed in regular 10-12 week cycles.  Unlike a conventional processing lab that may do one or two large volume processes in-house,  we have 12 small-volume processes.  We need to process in batches, mixing fresh chemistry and preparing for each process before moving to the next. Only after all the processing is complete does the negative scanning begin. Once that step is complete, the film acceleration is done as applicable. Once the accelerated films are scanned, the digital enhancement work is done and the image galleries created.  Finally, approximately 6 weeks after the cycle cutoff date, the galleries are ready to upload.   If you place an order after previewing your images, it may take 2-4 weeks to complete and be ready to ship.

Film for the next cycle must be in our hands by the cutoff date. The next cycle cutoff is:

Wednesday, October 9, 2019.  
Note: this is the last processing cycle before Christmas.  We will do our best to have orders back to customers by then but we don’t guarantee it.

Rush processing is available upon request. For further information on our turn-around click here. Please don’t wait until near the beginning of a cycle to send your film.  This slows down our administrative stage at the start of each cycle, delaying work for everyone.