Panda Photo Lab

Their prints are gorgeous, but their customer service is awful.
Make sure you give explicit instructions multiple times or be prepared to be blamed for their inability to listen.

TL;DR: great film lab, bad digital scans.
They have done a great job developing my 4×5, 120, and 35 mm film. They’re very knowledgeable, treat me very well, and have accommodated my particular needs. I highly recommend them for this.
Thinking they must be the best option around for this, and preferring to support a local shop where some of them remember my name after only a few visits, instead of using mail order, I had some Velvia 50 35 mm slides scanned, but was very disappointed in the quality. The slides look gorgeous, but the scans are in most cases useless even for posting on the web at small sizes. They have severely clipped highlights, the shadows are so noisy from being digitally brightened that the noise stays when I re-​darken them, and the images are overall very flat in appearance.
I called to discuss this, and while they offered to take another look and see what they can do to improve it, it sounds like it’s simply a result of the equipment they use, rather than any special mistakes. Other local photographers I’ve talked to have told me that Panda’s scans are disappointing to them as well. Maybe other films are more appropriate for their scanner, but for Velvia 50 I was expecting higher quality for the price that they charge, which is comparable to the mail-​order enhanced scanning from The Darkroom that other Seattle film photographers are recommending I use. I’m going to try that instead next time, but I do like and appreciate the folks at Panda Lab and am happy with everything I’ve tried but the scanning, so I will keep finding excuses to patronize them for developing and printing.
I believe the reason they charge so much for their low-​quality scans is because they take time to remove dust in Photoshop. I think they would negotiate a lower price for skipping that step, but I think they could do a better job of not getting people’s hopes up about the quality. Maybe set a lower default price, to indicate the actual quality, and have an add-​on for dust removal, or something. I can remove dust myself; I cannot do better scans myself unless I invest in a quality scanner. And dust is of lower concern to me than digital noise and clipped shadows and highlights.

I had a large, somewhat complicated job. Jackson went above and beyond. The prints were beautiful, and the pricing was better than I had hoped for. I’m so glad these guys are still around!

customer service is a little cold but I wouldn’t say unhelpful ! They definitely are very knowledgeable and helped me figure out what processing to do with a specific B&W film I was trying out for the first time. They always produce beautiful prints — I love Panda Lab!

We had the same experience as Jonathan S. They lost a roll of our film, though they gave us a roll that wasn’t ours (I don’t think it was Jonathan’s though). When we called this to their attention, they first suggested that maybe the pictures were ours (apparently from that one time when we were two women on some kind of butterfly trip). Poor, uninterested service prevailed throughout our interactions with them to try to retrieve our film. We returned in person once and spoke over the phone several times. They took our contact number each time, but never responded. No one ever apologized. The last time we called and asked for our money back (we’ll see if we get it), the person who answered asked, «Are you giving up?» as if we had some sort of control over the outcome. I have no faith that anyone ever looked for our pictures. I’ve certainly given up using Panda Lab.

I support local small business and I get the sweat and love that goes into making one succeed. And I’m the last person to publicly criticize anyone. So it bums me out that I have to toss a (metaphoric) bomb at Panda Lab.
The problem I had here: they lost a roll of film. This by itself I could forgive, but the poor customer service I cannot. I dropped off some rolls of very old film to develop. When I returned to pick up the prints, we realized that one roll was missing. They said they would search for it and contact me. They never did. I had to call back to inquire on progress. I was handed off to a manager (owner?) who was very defensive and unpleasant, leaving me feeling cold. I was passed off to someone else who was very kind, sympathetic and she said she would keep looking and follow up with me. Nobody has in 5 months.
I hope someone from Panda Lab reads this review and shares it at a staff meeting. I want you to know that I chose you to develop some very old rolls of film belonging to my wife’s family. It was to be a surprise with pictures of her deceased father from 20 years ago. I was planning a surprise for both my wife and her widowed mom of a man they both loved and who died an untimely death from cancer.
I honestly could forgive you lost the film. Accidents happen. But I cannot forgive the total lack of effort to acknowledge the loss. These were irreplaceable pictures.
But I do want you to succeed. My advice: if anything like this happens again, take more time to understand what your customer may have lost. Empathize. Make a symbolic gesture to help make it up — an Amazon gift card, a bottle of wine, something. And when you say you will call back — call back. If you can accept your performance merited one star — if you really get the emotional needs of your customer — then I think you guys will do just fine and I would gladly use your services again.

Incredibly helpful and they know exactly what I wanted. Perfect print. Highly recommend!

I am just getting back into film and have been trying for a certain look. Dana has been super generous with his time, we exchange ideas, and he is always willing to help and provide some advice. Could not recommended them more.

The female clerk’s bad attitude was palpable at «Hello». Forced smile complete with a big ‘ol chip on her shoulder. On my first visit I ignored her shitty-​ass aura. On my return visit it was impossible. This gal is ready for conflict the moment you walk in. She should never work with the public as she earned an F in customer service on both visits. I won’t be back. Plenty of other shops in town. Stay away if you can.

As we speak (type), the fine people at Panda Lab are doing a rush job for me on a double-​exposure art show film project. They’re processing the film today, calling me back in to look at the negatives, and getting the prints done for me to pick up Wednesday. I’ve worked with them a few times before and they are super helpful and super knowledgeable — I use them for 98% of my film processing in Seattle (the only thing I don’t bring them are my expired disposable camera rolls, but I would if I wanted to do Actual Prints from them). You just can’t beat the quality and expertise!

I gave Panda a few tries after 60 Minute Photo closed in November of 2012. Their prices were about a dollar more expensive for C-​41 120 development but I’d heard a lot of good things about them. Unfortunately, they kept burning the last frame on my film. When you’re shooting 67 on a 120 roll and you’re only getting ⁹⁄₁₀ photos, that’s a little frustrating. I tried to get some answers from the sales staff about what was going on, but most did not know or offer an explanation. One woman seemed willing to work to solve my issue, but the film turned out the same. I’ve since moved to another lab, get all 10 of my photos on a 120 roll and am much happier.

Great quality for years. Worth paying more for this service.

Panda photo is probably the only full service film developing photo lab in Seattle, or even Washington. They do amazing quality prints and use the best equipment, paper and color available. The staff is awesome and very helpful. In fact, we moved here to lower Queen Anne so we could be closer to the photo lab because we came here almost monthly!

I’ve taken in many old family photos to this shop to have them put on disc and occasionally reprinted. The quality of their work and the speed and attention to detail is awesome. Recently I went in just a few days before leaving the country in search of Italian relatives overseas. I had finally found the family photo I hoped to take with me and they were not only able to rush the job but gave me a small print to take with me so I wouldn’t be tempted to take the original.
I love this place and will always go back!

This was a very small job, and on a tight budget. The kind of job that has all the work of a decent project, but none of the payoff. I was referred to Panda by a local printer and called them about scanning a badly damaged 8×10 photograph in order to produce a handful of reprints to be used at a memorial service just two days away.
When I got to the shop and took the print out of the frame, I was disappointed to learn that the spots weren’t on the outside of the glass, but rather on the photograph itself, looked like coffee or pepsi, perhaps, maybe even a big gulp…
Dana wrote the job up for me and made some thoughtful suggestions on color correction and retouching, taking the image quality in stride and leaving me feeling confident that the finished product would be great.
It was ready by noon the following day, and the finished product was terrific. The work reflected a mastery of tool, a keen understanding of retouching, and would have required an hour or more studio time for even a seasoned studio artist.
The only snag was about the cost of the job, and could be chalked up to missed communications. In this line of work, like any other, a written estimate goes a long way. In the end though — they get the points again, because the manager wrote off a portion of the bill to bring it back in line, in large part because it’s for a memorial — and I really appreciate that too.
So, Panda gets a good review from me to be sure, albeit a very small project. I’m looking forward to quoting them next time I need some commercial retouching and/​or digital printing done locally.

Panda is one of Seattle’s hidden gems. I have trusted them with developing film as well as scanning old slides. They treated my images with care and precision. Panda does an amazing job and their employees are genuinely helpful. In an age where so much media has gone digital I appreciate the expertise of their team of artisans.
Thanks for taking great care of my images. Heidi Schreifels

Attitude I catch at the door and price I pay is not worth it.
Film needs to be fun and creative, but when I go to Panda I feel like I’m in the middle of a nightmare mowing a lawn with plastic scissors.

I am the most miserable procrastinator in the world and as such I had never fulfilled my own goal of archiving my family photos. I always put it off. What a hassle. Buy a scanner, sit there for hours scanning everything, etc. etc. But when a very close family member passed away suddently and unexpectedly recently, the task suddenly became a high priority. I knew that if I was going to do this myself it would never get done, so I decided to investigate and find out the best place to do this work for me. Given the very precious subject matter of these photographs, I really wanted to find somewhere that I could trust to do the best possibly quality work without breaking the bank completely.
So, I posted a thread on Unilocal talk asking for recommendations, and someone suggested Panda. One Saturday I gathered up the most important negatives and prints for which I had no negatives, and went in. Looking through those old pictures was a bit of an emotional experience for me and they were very patient with me — which was very kind of them since I can’t imagine it’s very good for business to have a blubbering gigantic tattooed guy standing at your counter. But the results were absolutely fantastic. They did a lot of different work for me and I couldn’t be more pleased. The digital scans of the prints were amazing and while I really wish I still had the negatives I am very relieved to have these scans on a CD. I had enlargements made of a few pictures that were particularly meaningful to me and they were just fantastic.
I actually came back the following week with a few more random pictures — some polaroids, some really old prints that had faded, and I also brought back a negative that I wanted blown up into as big a print as they could make but still with decent picture quality. They inspected the negative and told me they could do 11×14, and not only that, they could do it in about 15 minutes if I didn’t mind waiting. I took a walk over to Easy Street and blew some money on vinyl, then came back. They had done two prints at different levels of color saturation and sharpness so I could choose the one I liked the best. Nice.

I’ve lived in three different states over the last ten years. Panda is my favorite lab. Sadly, professional quality photo labs like Panda are becoming more and more scarce, so I’m really grateful Seattle has Panda. The owners and staff are truly wonderful. They’re friendly and very knowledgable, and they treat you like your order is important to them.
I use Panda primarily for large digital art prints, and they really excel in this area. I’ve also used them for developing medium format film, and their processing is consistently high quality. I know they offer many other services too.
Thanks, Panda!

I’ve been looking into a few other photo developers in the Seattle area and honestly haven’t found anyone better. Panda has attentive staff who genuinely care about your film. It’s nice that my 36 exp costs the same as a 24 exp roll, though high resolution scanning costs an additional $ 10/​roll which definitely adds up.
Places like these are becoming scarce and if you’ve ever had a blank roll returned to you from those drugstore developers (I’ll just call them FAILmart) then I suggest Panda.