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.......... But I completely disagree with what you say about this process being of a higher standard. I use film because I like the texture of a print made from a negative. What's more I prefer the colours. Digital imaging can often appear brutally sharp and colour oddly saturated.

And the last thing I want to do is muck about with all this stuff at home, thanks. I'm into the actual taking of the picture, pure and simple, and I like somebody else to deal with all the rest.

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I think you'll find that most commercial processers have scanned negs dgitally for about ten years now.

Commercially it makes a lot of sense as it is much easier to adjust exposure, colour balance and sharpness digitally rather than in wet processing. It is also easier to recover lost shadow and highlight details this way, as there are very few labs who will 'dodge and burn' as we used to. Added to which, most labs are now set up primarily to print from digital files rather than from negs.

In fairness most labs do a reasonable job, but some are appalling. But assuming that your negs have been exposed and processed properly you should be able to get them scanned again. Better still, get yourself a decent film scanner and do it yourself!

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I would agree that a skilled darkroom worker can produce stunning prints direct from negatives using the wet process. Cibachrome (from transparencies) is even better!

Sadly, such people are very few and far between these days, and few of us could afford to employ them on a regular basis.

Equally, digital scanning can, and does produce stunning results. But equally again, heavy handed sharpening or automated colour balancing can destroy a good image. But what do you expect for ten pence a print?

I gave up printing onto Cibachroms years ago, as I probably wasted ten sheets of [very expensive] paper for every print that I was happy with. I now scan my medium format films using a Nikon film scanner, and I can honestly say that the quality is superb. I also waste evry little paper these days!

I have pasted a few images below, all of which I scanned from Velvia roll film. Velvia does of course give very saturated colours; but do any of these show lurid colours or brutal sharpening? I don't think think so myself, but then we all have different tastes.