Monday, November 12, 2012

How To Create A Professional Photo Lab

By Madeline Finch


A professional photo lab refers to a room that is used to produce photographs from films and digital images. This will also include images from optical drives, flash disks and camera cards. Conventional film may also be processed. The room, also coined dark room may be used is basically used to convert immature images to desirable photos.

A darkroom brings many things into mind. Obviously the room tops the thoughts, since we are speaking of a dark room. Conventional photo-processing units include the details of film and paper as it was in the earlier decades. As expected, the room is completely void of light. The dynamics of the process are also simple, a developer to translate the film image and a stop bath to stop it. Lastly, fixer will preserve the final photographs from becoming dim.

Equipment used are easily available on the market. A setup for thirty five millimeters and one hundred and twenty millimeters must be used together with a reel for the development container. Additionally, the laboratory may also need to have large sheet films to accommodate wider images. Enlargers will be used to scan images from the paper films.

A sink will also come in handy. It will be used to rinse processed films and prints. Color prints will need more precision in timing and temperatures and thus will want experienced photographic laboratory technicians. It will also call for a higher degree of light proofing.

Obviously, with modern computerization, there are bound to be easier ways of doing photography. A hybrid system of wet film processing and computerized darkroom techniques will come in handy. The films are processed in the normal way, then scanned. Photoshop is then used to adjust print densities, as opposed to the traditional enlarger. Finally, digital prints are made out of the image. A minilab set of equipment is one big solution to the amalgamation of problems.

Digital cameras are shortcut route to owning a photo studio. When the image is captured using it, it is easily printed to a waiting printer and delivered to the client. With this, any form of photography is soft copies are easily converted to hard copies without much of a process.

Many factors will come in when starting a lab. The capital, equipment and location of the lab are key. This will form the basis of the business size. For example, a photo business can start with only a camera, a computer and a printer. To kick off operations, one will need to get a license and possibly create a website that will draw customers in their hundreds.

Above all, knowledgeable staff are key to a successful photographic laboratory. They should know how to use computers, and have people skills. Also, they should be diligent in their work and have a touch of perfection. Good organization is desirable so as to maintain tidiness and safety.

A professional photo lab will be fun to have regardless to if it is for pleasure or for money. The information above is a guide of all that would be necessary to have one. Given a space, proper machinery, great workers and the energy, the laboratory will succeed.




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