Dodge-Chrome

Say whatever you want about their prices and customer service, but remember that they are the only place in DC that you can trust to take care of your film and paper photographs. I took a 50 year old photograph in, and they restored it to its original condition. They had coffee and cookies out (free) for customers last time I was there. They work hard to make customers happy, but are extremely busy.

I love this shop. Dan and Anthony are friendly, professional technicians and artists. I’m often confused in the digital film process and they patiently walk me through my options. Very accommodating. I wouldn’t trust my photography, old or new, digital or paper, to anyone else.

After living in the DC area for more than 10 years, I decided to try Dodge Chrome’s storefront location for some last minute printing and scanning. Walking in and ordering prints from their outdated and antiquated Kodak machines was easy and the prints came through without a hitch. One print I needed had to be printed at another location and I would have to get it later.
The store called me twice over the next week to remind me to pick up the print. When I did go to get the print it was not there. The employee kept apologizing and blaming the loss on how busy they were. They did look busy and unorganized and unprofessional. At one point, I was visiting with another customer while the clerk looked for my lost print when another employee walked over and shushed us, saying he couldn’t hear himself think.
In a day and age when brick-​and-​mortar photo stores are going out of business left and right, shouldn’t these shops be more careful about how they treat customers?
I am able to order professional quality prints online for less money and have them delivered to my home faster than the service I have received from Dodge Chrome. Heartbreaking.
They get 2 stars instead of 1 because of the ONE nice employee who originally helped me.

As good as it gets!!! An old fashioned neighborhood store with old fashioned service. Every time I go all of my orders and questions are processed professionally and quickly!!! Most recently they helped me solve a Christmas dilemma. Thanks guys!

Dodge Chrome consistently come through for me. Today the photoshopped and printed photos for me at the last minute. They went out of their way to help me get my husband’s Fathers Day present printed before I head out of town. High quality, thoughtful personnel. Takes photography to another level.

The only reason Dodge doesn’t have a higher set of stars is because it is located in a neighborhood where a bunch of old folks don’t know how to use Unilocal!If it were in a younger part of town, everyone would be raving.
Here’s the skinny: great work and passionate employees. If you have special photo work to get done, bring it here. Occasionally they back up (mostly on the weekends), so there can be a wait, but only because the service they give they clearly want to be exceptional and get it right. I’ve been coming here for large prints and mounts for 3 years now and have never been disappointed.
Case and point, I had ~10 foam board mounts done at a significant cost a few months ago. On two separate occasions they spent about an hour with me doing photoshop and other work to get them to look just right. When I came to pick them up, some of the physical boards had ever so slight imperfections in them. They didn’t hesitate to re-​do all 10, free of cost, and without prompting gave me an additional print of one of the pictures that was not flawed, but they wanted to improve upon anyway.
Great work and great people at Dodge!

Best place to get film developed in the city. Just be prepared to pay a premium for it! I wouldn’t bring my 35 mm here… or my disposable cameras… but for medium and large format processing they really can’t be beat.

As I write this review a can of film I placed into the care of Dodge-​Chrome to be transferred to DVDs remains missing since early October. This film is the first few rolls my father shot and is of my family, so it is irreplaceable. They lost the film before they transferred it to DVD. Customer service has been abysmal with extremely infrequent communications about their efforts to locate the film. Yes, they have called other customers who dropped off film around the same time but this has not turned up the missing film and I don’t believe they are trying anything else. When I have stopped by the palisades location, where I dropped it off, the staff is completely uninformed of any efforts to find it and I always have to deal with the manager who runs between the two stores and who has failed to update me on anything close to an acceptable frequency. My frustration level is extremely high and I would not recommend this company to anyone.

Went in to get a poster framed and had a little miscommunication regarding the matting. Dave was a saint and worked everything out with management, who agreed to charge me less even though they didn’t have to. Total good faith move which has secured my business for the foreseeable future. Cannot say enough about these guys. You don’t need to even consider another spot for printing or framing. I’ve got them working on another job right now. I’d give them 6 stars if I could.

Got an 11×14 photo printed here. Ordered online, picked up in store. They’re really pricy but other than that, no complaints. Friendly staff.

Update: After Carol graciously contacted me and said they would give me a refund for the botched passport photo, I had every intention of changing this review to reflect that they obviously care about customer satisfaction and intended to give this local business another chance. Until I actually went in for the refund. I explained the situation to the guy at the counter who then accused me of «bad mouthing» them on Unilocal– I said I didn’t intend to bad mouth the business but just wanted to share my experience and that I intended to change my review after the refund. The guy was so rude to me– clearly irritated that I pointed out that my photo taken there was not accepted by the post office (and also $ 10 more expensive than any other place). I felt so uncomfortable. I really thought I was going to get a sincere apology and instead I left feeling very upset. I was ready to give this business another shot when I walked in there today and left feeling embarrassed and belittled even though I had done nothing wrong except share my experience on Unilocal.
Appreciate the refund but I will never give this place another chance after my experience today. It was so awkward and uncomfortable.

In the past, I have come to Dodge Chrome to help with difficult projects. They never disappoint. Today, I did the same and am grateful to Brenda and Dave for pulling through for me again. Good quality and good customer service. Yes, I enthusiastically recommend.

Fantastic service, great quality and problem resolving team. I’ve been using Dodge Chrome for gallery prints and the results have been top notch. Eric has been fantastic in helping on last minute PS adjustments and getting the sizing /​dimensions right. Full service, friendly and talented. Highly recommend.

Dodgechrome was recommended to me by a professional photographer. The shop handled all the historic artwork for my book on Washington. The results were first rate. I continue to use Dodge for all my important projects and recommend it to colleagues. Gail Spilsbury

Great service. Great process and scan. But the prices are ridiculous. I took a bunch of film there and didn’t even get a bulk discount. What is this? I switched places because the price is too expensive.

These guys need a customer service lesson, although at this point I’m just kinda laughing.
Mailed them some disposable cameras with 27 exposures on them. (That’s a normal 24-​exposure roll of film with the three extras you get on the leader.) They charged me for processing at the 36-​exposure rate.
So if I shoot a regular roll of film, nominally 24 exposures, and manage to squeeze an extra frame onto the film will they round up to the higher rate too?
I’d assumed I’d be charged what was listed on their price sheet online. Apparently that was my mistake. I asked for a refund for the difference between the 24 exposure rate and the 36. No dice. I asked for a refund for the PRORATED difference between 27 exposures and 36. A manager called me and was fairly agitated. I got agitated too – she was pretty confrontational.
«I can tell you’re just going to insist on having it your way,» she finally said. «I’ll process the refund and make a note in your account that you’re not the kind of person we want to do business with.» At this point, after talking to two separate people about how an unwritten policy to round up to the next highest price tier is ridiculous and kind of unfair (given that it’s not on their price sheet anywhere), Chrome is not the kind of company I want to do business with either. I will say that they did a fine job with the processing, though it was probably (but not definitely) wasted on film from a disposable camera.
«Have a nice life,» she then said.
Mind you, this is over a price difference of less than $ 10. Why be confrontational and lose a customer over $ 10? Ridiculous.

Awesome customer service.
Awesome scanning of negatives.
They really do a great job

These guys may be wonderful for professional printing, but beware the outsourced video conversion service. I dropped off a couple of VHS tapes for conversion to DVD, and unbeknownst to me, one of the VHS tapes had about 5 minutes of footage and the rest was static. I had no idea what was on these tapes, since I was converting them as a favor to a family member. Now, I will be the first to admit that, yes, I requested them to convert a VHS tape to a DVD. And yes, I understand that it’s $ 30 (!!) a tape, and it’s a simple conversion. And yes, I understand, it is not the job of the gentleman doing the conversion to watch the DVD or edit for content.
However. It would have been nice – extremely nice – if the person doing the conversion would have alerted me that I was about to pay $ 30 (!!) for a DVD full of static and 5 minutes of footage. How do I know they had the option to alert me? Because of a post-​it note on the DVD warning me to fast-​forward through all the static.
Again, I realize it’s my fault. I got what I paid for. But a courteous, thoughtful company would have warned me instead of taking my $ 30 (!!) and walking away. That’s the difference between a professional, reputable shop and a business that’s out to make a buck.

I visited Chrome at their new location today to have one 8X12 image printed.
The printing process was plagued with both human and computer errors, and after an hour and twenty minutes and a couple of botched prints, I received my picture. I was in a hurry, and when the computer system encountered an error when the employee was attempting to enter in my personal information for future «convenience», I told him enough was enough and that I would appreciate it if I could just pay and leave. Well, I couldn’t pay because the payment system crashed at this time, so the employee took down my card information so he could run it later.
The employee that was helping me, Jeremy, I believe, was fine, I get it, things happen, and he tried to make it better, but the other two employees were just generally irritating. A very audible and excited conversation was held about Chris Matthews from Hardball, who, apparent;y, had just called in to place an order; maybe it’s just me, but I found their audible indiscretion unprofessional.

Probably the only place left to get large format processing done in DC proper, which is why a friend and I came to them after our first rudimentary experiments with an older large format rig. They also seem to have the best local digital printing service for professionals and serious amateur attempts.
This is a high end shop with some real veterans on the staff. I hope to learn from them as I patronize them more over time.