Akron Commercial Color Lab

Here is the Cliffnote review if you don’t like reading these: I love Akron Commercial Color Lab (ACCL). Their prices are reasonable (especially for film process-​only), quality is outstanding, the owner is friendly, and their turnaround time is fantastic.
Now, if you want to read the real review, read on!
I rediscovered photography as a hobby about a year ago, and it has morphed from grabbing a roll of 35 mm and a camera that I’d had sitting around and «seeing what happens» to being obsessed with Polaroid, lens accumulation, things like ‘bokeh’…the list goes on and on. Why do I shoot film? Well, at first it was because that is all I had laying around from back in high school. I had gotten bored with using my phone as I had done to «take pictures of stuff» but yet gotten inspired by Instagram. Now it is because I have gotten obsessed with playing with different films, developers, lighting effects, etc.
If you shoot film, you need a good lab. These are few and far between anymore, and quite frankly, even if 5 stars normally means «Absolutely, positively perfect», any lab that is reasonable and produces good quality earns a five in my book. However, ACCL to me is on par with the best labs in the country that have huge online presences. Do you want your negatives in sleeves (for contact sheets)? They do that! Do you want your E-​6 slides mounted? They do that! Wait, lets go back… they process E-​6. That is a big deal anymore. Can they do individual scans because you are cheap? Yep. I have not found anything they cannot do, and they seem to do everything well. I am just a hobbyist, and most of my shooting is for my own education and pleasure. However, a professional photographer was in looking over his negatives from overseas with a model on the beach he had shot with his Hasselblad. They looked gorgeous, and you could tell this is a place that is friendly to the hobbyist, but caters to the professional. AND it is in Akron! 5+ stars, all the way.

I was VERY pleased with the quality of the prints that I got from the lab. As a professional photographer I’ve got a very critical eye. I’ve tried other labs before — ones online, ones that offer free delivery, etc., etc. The lab was easy to find — just seconds from the highway. When I dropped off my USB drive I asked the technician if he was a photographer — he said yes. Refreshing to find an employee that wasn’t just a hired guy off the street! The pricing was very fair — as photographers do we really care about getting CHEAP prints? I say no. Anyway, I was VERY happy with my experience with ACCL. They earned my business yesterday! I’ll be back!