Instead of the printing, why should you scan your negatives?
Did you know negatives packed much more information than a print? Most printed photos from a high street printing store tend to lose some details in the frame.
Your colour negatives were actually processed by an automated machine and scanned digitally for printing. But before that could take place, the scanned image has to go through the adjustment process, and it consist of dust removals, exposure, colour corrections and more. These adjustments were either adjusted automatically by the computer or manually by a staff. They must do that to ensure your prints look consistent.
The process is usually done in a casual way, because they have tons of other pictures await to inspect. As the result, there will be details lost in the print. For example, overexposed highlights of the sky or too dark in the shade. So, why not getting those controls yourself?
Many photographers and professionals love the colour that film produces. Unlike digital photos, negative film had its own tonality embedded in the frame. However, when you want to create a consistent tonality throughout a whole roll of film, would require attentive adjustments of each frame, which means that you have to scan it your own. This is why I scan my negatives for digitise archives and have that tonality look.
One more thing I should mention. There are less and less film photographers making prints of their negatives nowadays. They will go for the ‘developed and scanned’ service other than the 'developed and print' with the finished roll. The digitised pictures they got from the store were often JPEG files with 5400x3600 resolution in low-quality, the file size no more than 5MB.
If you shoot lots of film you should scan it yourself. A photo scanner could cost as low as £130 new from Epson on Amazon, or you can DIY it yourself by simply making a light box on top of a normal scanner.
(https://petapixel.com/2011/07/14/how-to-scan-film-using-your-ordinary-flatbed-scanner/)
(https://petapixel.com/2011/07/14/how-to-scan-film-using-your-ordinary-flatbed-scanner/)
