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These stories go back to my 20s, in the days when I was working at a one hour photo lab. That was a long time ago, so I can't remember what was said exactly verbatim, but I ga-ron-tee that these stories truthfully convey the gist of the events as they occurred.
First story concerns a Seeker of Truth.
Me: me
Seeker of Truth: SOT
SOT: Hey, how long does it take to process pictures?
Me: An hour. (duh, this is a one hour photo lab)
SOT: No, how long does it REALLY take?
Me: ...an hour?
SOT: Come on, you could do it faster. How long?
Me: Oh, you mean what is the minimum possible time? Well, the film processor takes 32 minutes, give or take a minute for shorter or longer rolls of film; it takes about a minute for an operator to print the pictures, and then the prints take another 16 minutes to process. So, 49 minutes.
SOT: (winking) Come on, you could do it faster than that if you really wanted to.
Me: No, 49 minutes is the minimum. It can't get any faster than that.
SOT: Come ON, SURE it could. Just tell me.
Me: No it can't. These are chemical processes, and each step needs a certain amount of time to complete.
SOT: Are you trying to tell me that you couldn't run it through in say half an hour if you wanted to? Come on!
Me: You know how it takes a certain amount of time to bake a cake, right? Do you think you could bake the cake in half the time just by turning up the oven?
SOT: No, I know you could do it faster if you really wanted to! Don't shit me! How long? (grinning like a maniac this whole time as if we're sharing some demented secret)
Me: No, we can't speed up the process any more than that, it would ruin the negatives.
SOT: No it wouldn't! You could if you wanted, right? Just tell me the truth. (grin grin grin)
This goes on for about ten more minutes as he tries every way he can think of to wheedle the "truth" out of me that one hour photo could be virtually instantaneous and that we apparently just sit around picking our butts for the other 59 minutes. Finally he gives up:
SOT: Okay man, whatever. Sorry you couldn't tell me the truth! (leaves)
Me: ...
Second story concerns a Professional Amateur Photographer.
A little background. The worst customers were amateurs who thought they were professionals, and the worst of those were the ones who thought buying professional gear and supplies is all it takes to make you a professional. They were always blaming us for their shortcomings. If the picture looks like crap, it's because we printed it wrong, not because you don't know how to use your fancy-pants automatic SLR.
Technical background: Photo film and photo paper have a characteristic called "latitude," which is the range of tones available between the extremes of 100% unexposed to 100% exposed. In modern terms, think of it as being like the contrast range of an HDTV. Photo film, being transparent, has a wider latitude than photo paper, being opaque. Professional photo film has a wider latitude than consumer film. (Consumer film has a compressed latitude to make it more forgiving of exposure mistakes.) This is important to the story.
Me: me
Professional Amateur Photographer: PAP
PAP brings us in about a dozen rolls of film, all Kodak professional color negative 35mm. We process the film and look at the negatives, which turn out to be pictures of a wedding and reception. PAP has made a classic amateur mistake; he has taken roll after roll of indoor flash shots of people standing close to the camera, with a huge banquet room behind them (i.e. no background close to the subjects). The camera's auto-exposure has tried to compensate, and the result is that all the subjects are completely washed out (overexposed) and the details of the room behind them are marginally visible on the negatives. I print them myself, and I do what I can with them, but because of the latitude difference explained earlier, I have to choose whether to print for the faces or the background. I choose the faces, using long print exposures to try to get some skin tone and detail. This makes the backgrounds go black, but this can't be helped.
Later that afternoon, PAP comes to get his prints, and he Is. Not. Happy.
PAP: Hey! There's a problem with these prints.
Me: What's the trouble? (knowing full well what is coming)
PAP: The backgrounds are all black.
Me: Yeah, that'll happen, because (explains, as above).
PAP: No, that's bullshit. I can see all the detail of the room behind the people in the negatives.
Me: I'm sorry, but the paper latitude is less than the film latitude and I had to choose what to print for. I could print them again for the background if you want, but that'll make the faces wash out, and I don't think you'll be happy with them.
PAP: Look. I brought you professional film, and I expect professional results.
Me: Sir, I'm trying to explain. With these negatives I can't make you machine prints that look like you want. To fix them I'd have to give them to my custom printing tech, and she can print them by hand on an enlarger and "dodge" the backgrounds to lighten them up, but that's a manual process and it starts at $5 a print. There is no way to make a machine print that looks the way you're asking, from these negatives.
PAP: (smiling tightly) Okay, I know when somebody's blowing smoke up my ass. I'll just take these to somewhere where they know what they're doing, like Walgreens, and get good prints made. (dripping sarcasm) Thank you. (grabs his prints and negatives and strides out.)
You know how it is when you think of the right thing to say, just a moment too late? I was so mad at being called a liar by this guy that I basically locked up for a moment, and by the time I unfroze and thought of what to say next, he was gone. For 24 years I have been wishing I'd said:
Me: Now hold on. I'll tell you what; I'll make you a deal. You take those negatives ANYWHERE, Walgreens or wherever else, and if you get machine prints that look like what you are asking for, I will personally pay for them out of my pocket.
But I didn't. I just stood there paralyzed with contained fury.
That customer never showed his face in the store again. I don't know if it was because he stayed mad, or because he eventually found out I was telling him the truth and didn't want to face me. But he vanished forever.
First story concerns a Seeker of Truth.
Me: me
Seeker of Truth: SOT
SOT: Hey, how long does it take to process pictures?
Me: An hour. (duh, this is a one hour photo lab)
SOT: No, how long does it REALLY take?
Me: ...an hour?
SOT: Come on, you could do it faster. How long?
Me: Oh, you mean what is the minimum possible time? Well, the film processor takes 32 minutes, give or take a minute for shorter or longer rolls of film; it takes about a minute for an operator to print the pictures, and then the prints take another 16 minutes to process. So, 49 minutes.
SOT: (winking) Come on, you could do it faster than that if you really wanted to.
Me: No, 49 minutes is the minimum. It can't get any faster than that.
SOT: Come ON, SURE it could. Just tell me.
Me: No it can't. These are chemical processes, and each step needs a certain amount of time to complete.
SOT: Are you trying to tell me that you couldn't run it through in say half an hour if you wanted to? Come on!
Me: You know how it takes a certain amount of time to bake a cake, right? Do you think you could bake the cake in half the time just by turning up the oven?
SOT: No, I know you could do it faster if you really wanted to! Don't shit me! How long? (grinning like a maniac this whole time as if we're sharing some demented secret)
Me: No, we can't speed up the process any more than that, it would ruin the negatives.
SOT: No it wouldn't! You could if you wanted, right? Just tell me the truth. (grin grin grin)
This goes on for about ten more minutes as he tries every way he can think of to wheedle the "truth" out of me that one hour photo could be virtually instantaneous and that we apparently just sit around picking our butts for the other 59 minutes. Finally he gives up:
SOT: Okay man, whatever. Sorry you couldn't tell me the truth! (leaves)
Me: ...
Second story concerns a Professional Amateur Photographer.
A little background. The worst customers were amateurs who thought they were professionals, and the worst of those were the ones who thought buying professional gear and supplies is all it takes to make you a professional. They were always blaming us for their shortcomings. If the picture looks like crap, it's because we printed it wrong, not because you don't know how to use your fancy-pants automatic SLR.
Technical background: Photo film and photo paper have a characteristic called "latitude," which is the range of tones available between the extremes of 100% unexposed to 100% exposed. In modern terms, think of it as being like the contrast range of an HDTV. Photo film, being transparent, has a wider latitude than photo paper, being opaque. Professional photo film has a wider latitude than consumer film. (Consumer film has a compressed latitude to make it more forgiving of exposure mistakes.) This is important to the story.
Me: me
Professional Amateur Photographer: PAP
PAP brings us in about a dozen rolls of film, all Kodak professional color negative 35mm. We process the film and look at the negatives, which turn out to be pictures of a wedding and reception. PAP has made a classic amateur mistake; he has taken roll after roll of indoor flash shots of people standing close to the camera, with a huge banquet room behind them (i.e. no background close to the subjects). The camera's auto-exposure has tried to compensate, and the result is that all the subjects are completely washed out (overexposed) and the details of the room behind them are marginally visible on the negatives. I print them myself, and I do what I can with them, but because of the latitude difference explained earlier, I have to choose whether to print for the faces or the background. I choose the faces, using long print exposures to try to get some skin tone and detail. This makes the backgrounds go black, but this can't be helped.
Later that afternoon, PAP comes to get his prints, and he Is. Not. Happy.
PAP: Hey! There's a problem with these prints.
Me: What's the trouble? (knowing full well what is coming)
PAP: The backgrounds are all black.
Me: Yeah, that'll happen, because (explains, as above).
PAP: No, that's bullshit. I can see all the detail of the room behind the people in the negatives.
Me: I'm sorry, but the paper latitude is less than the film latitude and I had to choose what to print for. I could print them again for the background if you want, but that'll make the faces wash out, and I don't think you'll be happy with them.
PAP: Look. I brought you professional film, and I expect professional results.
Me: Sir, I'm trying to explain. With these negatives I can't make you machine prints that look like you want. To fix them I'd have to give them to my custom printing tech, and she can print them by hand on an enlarger and "dodge" the backgrounds to lighten them up, but that's a manual process and it starts at $5 a print. There is no way to make a machine print that looks the way you're asking, from these negatives.
PAP: (smiling tightly) Okay, I know when somebody's blowing smoke up my ass. I'll just take these to somewhere where they know what they're doing, like Walgreens, and get good prints made. (dripping sarcasm) Thank you. (grabs his prints and negatives and strides out.)
You know how it is when you think of the right thing to say, just a moment too late? I was so mad at being called a liar by this guy that I basically locked up for a moment, and by the time I unfroze and thought of what to say next, he was gone. For 24 years I have been wishing I'd said:
Me: Now hold on. I'll tell you what; I'll make you a deal. You take those negatives ANYWHERE, Walgreens or wherever else, and if you get machine prints that look like what you are asking for, I will personally pay for them out of my pocket.
But I didn't. I just stood there paralyzed with contained fury.
That customer never showed his face in the store again. I don't know if it was because he stayed mad, or because he eventually found out I was telling him the truth and didn't want to face me. But he vanished forever.
To a point megapixels don't matter much unless you are planning to resize your pictures MUCH larger than average.
Hey now, hold on a minute! Walgreens employs only the most highly trained and intelligent photo specialists 
Gah, I can't even keep a straight face on the internet! Now granted, my current team of photo techs are very good (i.e. haven't ruined anyone's pictures), but all they do is extract the film, process the film, stick it into the printer, maaaybe pay attention to bad pictures and pass them, then stuff them into an envelope. Not a single person in my store (including me, I will confess), knows squat about the latitude of pictures. All we do is hit the "print" button and hope for the best.
The technique at that point would have been to print the negatives one by one in a manual enlarger, and wave a cardboard cutout between the projection lens and the paper to block some areas of the print from getting as much exposure. A time consuming manual process, to be sure.
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