Color negative film (C-41) is the fastest turnaround because the chemistry is the most standardized — Kodak Gold, Portra, Ektar, ColorPlus all run through the same process regardless of brand. Black and white takes longer because there is more than one developer worth using depending on the stock and how it was shot, so we make a call on chemistry per batch instead of running everything through one tank.
Once a roll is developed, it gets cut, sleeved, and scanned frame by frame. This is the step people usually do not think about: a bad scan can undo a perfectly exposed negative, so we scan at a resolution that holds up if you want to print large later, not just enough for a phone screen.
You get digital files back either way, but we hang onto the physical negatives for pickup rather than discarding them — they are the actual archive. A hard drive can fail. A properly stored negative sleeve just sits in a drawer for twenty years and still scans fine.
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