Photo Lab FAQ

  1. Before inquiring as to your order status, please review the Production Times FAQ
  2. If you are wondering if we have received your film yet, please check your inbound tracking number with the Post Office. If tracking shows your film has arrived at our post office, but you have not been notified, please allow 1 – 3 business days to enter production.
  3. If you have a question that isn’t listed here or have a comment, please contact us on our customer service page. We will respond promptly (likely within 6 hours if during business hours).

General information (9)

No—but please don’t misunderstand this as any lack of interest! We’d love to answer your questions.

We know the decision to omit phone support is unusual, but after experimenting with different approaches, we’ve found that starting with email enables us to provide the fastest response. We focus on providing fast and high quality responses by email, so you’re always talking to a human that can help first-hand.

We offer eGift Cards here:  Gift Cards

How to order:

  1. Choose the amount
  2. Enter the recipient’s email address
  3. Enter your name
  4. Enter optional message
  5. Click the optional “Postpone Delivery” box to set a future delivery date if desired
  6. Add to cart and checkout

No physical card will be mailed to the recipient.

Cards don’t have expiration dates or additional fees. The value of your gift card will be reduced when used to make a purchase

E-Gift Cards are non-transferable, non-refundable, and are not redeemable for cash

TheDarkroom.com gift cards are good for use on all products on TheDarkroom.com, with the following exceptions:

  1. Gift Cards cannot be used to purchase new Gift Cards
  2. Gift Cards cannot be used to purchase Holiday Cards

 

If you need to cancel an order, please let us know right away. Please note that online print orders cannot be canceled as they are imaged immediately after ordering.

Also, note that canceling an order and not placing a new order will be subject to a fee up to 3% to offset to our credit card merchant fee charged to us even for a refunded order.

If you are sending in film to be processed, you can enclose a check, money order, or credit card information.

The best way, however, is to use the online prepay option. Our system will even remember your credit card details if you wish. You can also pay via Paypal online as well.  Also under the Paypal button are options for Venmo and Pay Later.

Paying online is also faster because your order goes right into production bypassing other orders being manually logged and charged manually. Additionally, online payment via credit card or Paypal is the most secure payment option.

All our pricing is in USD.

Make sure you whitelist [email protected] so you get our emails.

We collect sales tax where legally required. These states currently include:

States include AK, AR, AZ, CA, CO, DC, FL, GA, HI, IL IN, IA, KS, KY, LA, MA, ME, MD, MI, MN, NE, NV, NJ, NC, OH, PA, RI, UT, VT, VA, WA, WI, WV, WY.

Sales tax states are subject to change at any time.

For further sales tax info, check out these articles by Taxjar – the company that calculates our sales tax online.

For sales tax on info shipping, please see this article.

The Darkroom does not accept resale or exemption certificates.

There are many sites that list coupon codes for The Darkroom, but they will not work.

We know there is a coupon field/gift card field on our checkout page and that many of our customers see this and then search for “The Darkroom coupon codes”, discount codes or promo codes. There are many “deal sites” that list fake coupon codes for The Darkroom and other companies to get indexed in Google and attract users to their website. Our coupon code field is used for very specific scenarios and The Darkroom has the policy to focus on aggressive pricing and value. Our approach is honest pricing and not to inflate the price and create coupons and marketing promotions to discount that inflated price.

Deal sites with coupon codes for The Darkroom are fake, so please don’t get frustrated by them. You are getting our best price.

Fake The Darkroom coupon codes

While The Darkroom doesn’t create coupon codes, we do have Gift Cards. These are emailed to the recipient on your behalf with a personal message and at a time of your choosing.

Learn more about gift cards

 

View Coupon Code Page

The following are our standard production times in business days*.  For any current service advisories, please see our current Lab Status Page.  We pride ourselves on quality, consistency, and quick delivery. Occasionally, there may be factors (unclear instructions, production problems, etc.) that might cause an order to be delayed. Although we rarely miss our production times, service times are not guaranteed.

  • Film Developing, Scanning & Printing – Most orders are produced in 3-6 days.
  • Single-Use Cameras – Most orders are produced in 3-7 days.
  • Cartridge Film – (110, 126, APS/Advantix) Most orders are produced in 10-12 days.
  • Damaged film – (torn sprockets, overlapped frames, uneven frames) Due to manual scanning, most orders are completed in 7-12 days.
  • Negatives/Slides – Prints and scans from previously developed film typically take 10-14 days.
  • E-6 Film – Please allow an extra day or two due to batch scheduling.
  • Photographic Prints – ordered from scans online generally take 2-5 business days of production time.
  • Photo Gifts – Canvas, Metal, Acrylic and Bamboo products generally run 5-8 days of production time.  These times will be extended from Thanksgiving to Christmas.

We are located in Southern California, so mail takes 2-6 days to reach us from almost anywhere in the country. Occasionally production times and shipping run a bit longer, especially before or after holidays.

If you track your inbound shipments, the USPS notification saying your order was delivered is an acceptance by our local post office, it does not mean it is in our lab yet.  There’s typically at least a 1-3 business days delay between the post office “received” notification and actual delivery to our facility.  The folks at the post office know us by name and put our stuff in the front of the line! You will receive an email as soon as your order arrives and enters production.


If you are in a time crunch, you are welcome to FedEx or UPS Overnight your film to us and that should shave some time off of your turnaround time.  Be sure to send it to our physical address and not our PO Box.

*Business days are Monday-Friday and exclude legal holidays.

The Darkroom does not offer rush or expedited services.

Although we don’t sell film, we can recommend a few places.

Film Photography Project

Freestyle Photo

B&H Photo

For film reviews, check out our Film Index.