Salon - - Walgreens photo restoration - Page 3

Juliana Ross · #31 03-05-2004, 02:22 PM

Wow! and I thought we were hacking at London Drugs!
That Walgreens photo is horrible.
For the first time I do not feel so bad about having had to work at a chain photofinisher, even the stuff coming out of LD was better than that.

G. Couch · #32 03-05-2004, 05:38 PM

I'm just going to create a photo restoration vending machine...slide your photo in and get a restored version in under 2 minutes! It would not be that hard to create a machine that could do a few automated scratch removals and levels adjustments...put a few machines in the mall and people would love it.

rondon · #33 03-05-2004, 06:26 PM

I think Hewlette / Packard makes such hardware

Vikki · #34 03-17-2004, 09:44 AM

More on Walgreens...I hope it doesn't seem like I'm obsessing on this topic. I'm just curious about who the "artists" are, who do this work.
I never did hear back from Walgreens, although I did see that they visited my website.
Interesting FYI:
I was browsing and came upon a site that has the exact same restoration examples as Walgreens: http://www.phototlc.com/home.html
Looking a bit further into that, I discovered that this company sources it's work to a company in New Zealand, where all the restoration work is done:
http://www.photopages.co.nz/main.htm
Jobs
Article

So, after reading all this, I am wondering if the clerk at Walgreens was incorrect when she said the restoration work was sent to Qualex. It is interesting that the examples from Walgreens are exactly the same as the ones from PhotoTLC/Photopages. My conclusion from this is that Walgreens is using the New Zealand company.

Well, that's that. I think I'll move on now.

Doug Nelson · #35 03-17-2004, 10:50 AM

They're a franchise, and evidently for sale.

It looks similar to hollywoodfotofix.com, only they send their stuff to Peru.

W. Rose · #36 03-19-2004, 05:24 PM

Hi Vikki,
I just noticed your thread on Walgreen and was wondering if you had posted the picture that was restored by their lab.
Would love to see where we stand compared to them.
Thanks, Wayne

Vikki · #37 03-19-2004, 07:00 PM

The photo is posted in the Challenges gallery (I think there's a link somewhere in this thread).
Wait til you see it!

mingus · #38 08-22-2004, 03:46 PM

yep im new and im interested to see the example of this walgreens job is there a link to it somewhere?

W. Rose · #39 08-22-2004, 05:39 PM

Hi Mingus,
Welcome to RP. You can find the link on page 2 of this thread #20 by Vikki.
Wayne

mingus · #40 08-22-2004, 07:41 PM

Id like to apologise for that, i didnt do it personaly but i do work for the comany that did it. It is apalling and unfortunatly with the number of images processed there has been some that go through at an annaceptable standard.

Vikki · #41 08-25-2004, 08:14 AM

No need to apologize Mingus.
However, you might want to let your company know this type of work is going out, and that Walgreen's did not respond to my email about this. The reason being, that eventually this could lead to loss of business for your company.

Biffo · #42 09-03-2004, 06:27 PM

Speaking as a franchise owner for Photopages in another country I would not have given that example back to a customer. I have sent far better examples than that back for a rework. At present I do the QA for my country of residence and that would not have gone through.

I suspect Walgreens may be using more than one supplier.

Jim Conway · #43 09-29-2004, 10:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vikki

It's always good to know your competition.

As it stands, I think everything in Walgreen's ads for this service are misleading.

Vickie - We had a Walgreens employee come in and apply for a part time receptionist opening last month - she also told us that Walgreens C&R services were very limited and that they (some of the employees) would like to refer the "quality type" work they couldn't handle to us ...

Making the long story short - I did give her the part time job we had open. She worked a total of six 4 hr. days (training time) and quit. We now know that she is the manager of their local area photo departments not just someone who was working at Walgreens part time!

Vickie I think you did an exceptional job of both gaining the information and in your detailed reporting. You are an exceptional person to go to such lengths to help us all be better informed and you have my sincere thanks!

For the rest of you, I'd like to add that if you have a good business in your area - count on it people are probably checking on you as well - and in this case, I do believe that Walgreens went the extra mile to learn all they could about this type of business - unknowingly I aided them!

Jim Conway
Timemark Photo Conservators

Vikki · #44 09-29-2004, 12:13 PM

What an interesting story Jim!
I wonder what knowledge she gained that could transfer to Walgreens?

Glad to be of help.

Just a note (if I remember correctly, you are a traditional retouch/restoration artist) ...I've been working with a few traditional retouchers/coloritst lately, and am amazed at the work process. I imagine it would be more difficult for me to learn traditional retouching than it would for them to learn digital. I had no idea what was involved before meeting these individuals. We're sharing our knowledge and skills, and it's been quite refreshing!

Jim Conway · #45 09-29-2004, 01:50 PM

My guess Vickie is this. In looking at their package of prints, it's much like the K-Mart - Sears approach was in the '70's. The name of the game was to break into the market with a super bundle of prints and in store shoots at below production cost. The profits came later when the customer was "upgraded" with services where they could make some real money. A few decades later, K-mart is not babies - it's school kids under the name of LifeTouch. In the '80's Sears went into HS Senior Portrait Photography under another label and Church Photography under still another. I don't know if they are still active at that or not, it's been 25 years or so since I've had studios competing in the school business.

You are correct, we do traditional work here as well as digital and (going way back in time) I'm an airbrush artist among other things. In fact Timemark is a spin off of Bruno Studios founded in Portland during the Lewis and Clark Expo in 1905. "Pop Bruno" came here from Germany and was one of the first airbrush artists in the world. He specialized in photo copy and restoration work for years before the studio started doing any original photo assignments. Happy 100th to us next year!

Back to the subject - the marketing approach that Walgreens could be looking for in the products like those we offer here could be in the photo world in the production of things like "real negatives" (human readable for several centuries) using film recorders, fiber base prints (nothing lasts longer), or in the art world for example with hand oil coloring (replicate the originals), oil paintings from photo originals, etc. I think that with the low cost labor pool available from overseas combined with the lack of restrictions on darkroom chemistry dumping that we face here, given enough money and a decade to work it all out, there isn't much they can't do other than sit down with the client and listen to the "old stories" that go along with every order! That's the part we are really good at! We listen and enjoy those old stories! :-)

Jim Conway
Timemark Photo Conservators