Luster Photo & Digital

Was on the hunt for a new photo lab in NYC, and thanks to the beauty of Unilocal,I came across Luster Photo & Digital. I’ve been in to have dozens of color 120 rolls processed and have also had contact sheets made, and have never had any issues with either. Quick turnaround times (less than 24 hours for a dozen rolls of film) and friendly employees. Can’t recommend them enough.

I exclusively take my film to be developed, printed and scanned here. The quality can’t be beat and I love the way the prints come out. A little on the pricey side (2 color rolls of 36 cost me $ 48 for full print and scan onto CD) but worth it.

Super super nice! Good quality photo printing and Juan is really willing to spend time to help — she nicely and patiently explains to me differences between matte and glossy and many other things, regardless of how simple questions they may be, and detailed manipulation on Photoshop edits, etc. Thanks so so so so much!

Friendly staff, my color negs came back fine. Thing is, they’re pretty expensive and they still nickel and dime you with everything. They even charge you to cut the negs and be put into sleeves ($ 2). I may return if I have to, but I’m looking elswhere first for better value.

Yes they’re reliable and consistent but profoundly overpriced. $ 30 for scanning and develop, not even prints. It’s ludicrous. Also forget about 1 hour, they usually take 2 – 3 days for color and sometimes more for black and white. Unfortunately there’s nowhere else I know yo go that does quick turn around for fine art/​high quality film developing. If you are developing disposable or non-​art photos I would recommend 77 Elizabeth for actual 1-​hour processing at half the price.
Another annoying thing is how unfriendly and brusque they are even with regular
Customers. I come here almost every week and not once have they cracked as much as a smile. Luster is all business.

Brought in very old negatives and had photos printed, excellent job, quick turn around and not overpriced.

My first experience has been pretty unfortunate and I don’t think I’m going to repeat it. I took eight 120 rolls for developing here and two 35 mm for developing and scanning. When I dropped them I made clear to not cut the negatives. I know that for some weird reason, photo labs tend to cut strips of 4-​frames and my archival pages are designed for 6 frames stripes which is the common format in Europe. And also that is a format that works for me better when it comes to scanning. Despite my request they cut the 35 mm negatives into 4 frames stripes. When I told them that that wasn’t what I wanted they just said that there wasn’t any note saying that… They never offered me any compensation.
I hate to say this but I won’t go back here and I will keep looking for another photo lab which listens to its clients requests.

Great service, good pricing, and very satisfied with the quality of my prints.

Super nice folks that do a stellar job. I’ve only been here once so far — just moved to the city and needed to find a place to get film developed and scanned — but based on this first experience alone, I’m pretty sure I’ll be back for my next few rolls.
It costs $ 13.99 to develop and scan a 35 mm roll of 36 exposures, which is on par or slightly lower than I’ve paid for the same service in Chicago, so I’m happy with that. Still not super cheap, but ironically film is probably the only business that gets more expensive as demand declines. I brought my film in on a Monday and they said they’d have it ready by Saturday, but they did ask if I needed it back in a hurry (to which I said no), so I imagine that if you specified it as a rush job, they would be happy to try and turn it around more quickly.
I picked up my film and CD of scanned images today and am happy with the results. I’ll be back!

Used to be a good place. Not sure what happened here — I used to get all my E6 done here and was very impressed with results but over the last year the quality has really gone down. It costs about $ 30/​roll to develop/​scan and the results have been consistently grey and disappointing. The owner works hard, so I feel bad posting this, but I’ve been disappointed one too many times now. Their black and white process/​scanning is also pretty lousy. No contrast, everything comes back grey looking like it has a film over it. Sadly,

First time ever writing a review on something and I’ll make it short and sweet. Service was great, pay upfront (wasn’t thrilled about this but now that I know the results, no problem!), friendly and straight forward, results were fantastic. I have been shooting 120 film for years and I have never once had results like this. You can tell they take time and take pride in what they do. Yes, not cheap but anything with film camera developing and prints is. You get what you pay for and at Luster it’s quality. Had low grade 35 mm developed and was amazed on how their job far surpassed anyone I’d ever gone to– didn’t even look like the film I was used to.

This is THE place to get film developed and scanned in the city if you have the money. I have tried every lab in the city and no one is as consistent as Luster. Have developed hundreds of rolls and sheets with these guys over the years and they have never made one mistake. Scans are good — wish they would bump up the resolution a bit, but I’m just using for web purposes, so its no a big deal. Everything is spot on. Prints look great too.
Only drawback is that you will pay for the quality. They will charge you for every little thing. Not a place to go if you are looking for some cheap development. You get what you pay for here.

I normally develop my own film at home but I needed to develop some test 120 rolls while in town and ended up here since they had the best rates and time frame.
This is a lovely, small business that I am happy to support anytime I’m in NYC. One day turn around for my negatives (which is great compared to some places I called who were quoting me at minimum for 2 days??) which turned out great, except for one roll that I ruined but the guy was able to tell me how I ruined it! Ah so helpful. Developed mainly 120 film but also a roll of 35.
Prices are reasonable, cheaper than back in Portland. 8.00 for negatives only B&W 120 film, which is cheaper than any place in Portland. Highly recommend for B&W developing. We’ll see how they do on color when I pick them up tomorrow!

What a secret treasure. Ran in to get some last minute large scale stuff printed. Someone sat down with me and did the sizing. I couldn’t believe the service and end result.
Really helpful, nice, quick.
They delivered a stunning product at a reasonable price for NYC printing. Love love love!

Amazing, simply amazing. I’ve gotten a few prints from them and they’re always impeccable. Prices are reasonable by New York standards and they do a great job calibrating the photos for their printers. Would definitely recommend.

I stopped by to print some wedding photos and could not have been happier with the experience. Steve brought me to a computer and went through the pictures with me, making sure the sizes and borders were right. He was very patient and didn’t mind that I had my pictures unorganized on my usb. I came by 45 minutes later and picked up the 30 prints. Will definitely come here again.

Over the years I’ve had over 25 prints done at Luster Photo ranging from small to banner size. All of them are fantastic and they take great pride in their work. They are always patient when helping me decide where to crop an image and they use photoshop to pop the colors out more. They spend a lot of time advising me which medium to print on as each one has been for a different purpose or location. I have 10 prints hanging in my building’s lobby that range from 20 by 20 inches to 5 ft by 2.5ft.

I am a SmugMug member and am generally happy with their better printers’ output, but I had a deadline that precluded me from going that route. So I started researching printing options in NYC. There are many great options, but I was turned on to Luster by Unilocal reviewers’ emphasis on attentive, friendly and professional customer service in addition to general agreement on the high quality of their prints. I am glad that in this case the Unilocal reviewers were right.
I showed up 10 minutes before their opening time, but was invited in by the proprietor, Xiang, who is a very professional and good-​natured person.
Xiang and I discussed the best way to proceed with my JPEG files, given that I wanted to fit them into the atypically (European) sized Ikea frames. I printed pictures that were15.75“x19.75″, 11.75“x15.75″, 9.75“x20″, and 7.5“x9.5″, as well as a number of straightforward sizes (8“x10″ and 5“x7″). Xiang let me make some crop corrections to my files right there on his Mac, showing me quickly how to set them up so that they would be easy for him to cut to fit my frames exactly. And he told me my prints would be ready for pickup the next morning.
I ended up picking up the completed job /​that night/​. I was presented with each of my prints and given a chance to review the work.
I am truly pleased with the results. The color pops, has real energy to it, and best of all I feel that I’m seeing (and feeling) that these prints convey what I saw and felt in the images. The color QUALITY is excellent. Coming home and placing the art in the frames confirmed that Luster’s staff were careful about cutting my prints. Everything fit perfectly. The next morning I submitted a second job digitally around 10:15am and the job was ready for pickup at 1am. Wow! I would never expect that kind of service on a regular basis, but it seems to me that this is a shop focused on delivering the best possible turnaround times it can, which I very much appreciate.
I would have paid a steep premium and still only received prints in 3 – 4 days from most online vendors, and in many cases I’d still have to tackle the cutting. I would say Luster’s pricing is competitive with high quality online vendors and very competitive with other printers in the city.
I am thrilled to have discovered Luster Photo and Digital and will certainly return, especially to print larger and atypically sized photographs. Such a positive experience! I highly recommend that you put this place at the top of your list.

This place is really great and really affordable!
They charged me about $ 20 for processing and scans of some black and white film. The price was reasonable, the work was of high quality, and the service was excellent.
I’m excited to go back for prints.
$ 10 minimum for cards.

Printed two rolls of 120 and they were perfect. I even got a cute little box to put them in.
I also bought two rolls of ektar (120) in store and they were a little expensive — but I was too lazy to walk anywhere else and they were fresh in the fridge.
Guy in the store was super nice, will go again!