One of the most popular hobbies of mankind is photography. That is why the organization of a business that provides services to those who want to print pictures is a very profitable project.
Significant adjustments to this area were made by technological progress. The real revolution was the possibility of creating mini laboratories in which traditional photo paper is used for prints from digital media. The organization of a small business allows you to print and traditional pictures. In this case, the image is digitally processed.
This is not the first year on the market that organizations have been involved in printing and scanning. Their activities fully satisfy unpretentious average demand. However, at the moment it is becoming more profitable to open a professional photo lab (prolab).
Business prospects
For enterprising people, a mini darkroom can open up new possibilities. Serving demanding amateur and professional photographers is a complex and expensive affair. However, this direction is very promising. This area of the service market is expanding at an impressive pace.
She is currently attractive due to the lack of serious competition. But it is worth bearing in mind that the annual income of many participants in this market segment already exceeds one million dollars. Often a client needs to print one or two frames. However, he wants to see them in excellent quality.
An alternative to consumer goods is professional photo labs. They exist relatively recently. Before their appearance, only a narrow circle of photographers could display and print truly high-quality images. Now the rapidly growing number of people who want to print the footage in the prolapse.
This is due to the fact that the purchase of expensive and high-quality photographic equipment is not currently problematic. And its owners are not satisfied with printed images with fuzzy contours, high graininess and unnatural images. That is why a professional photo lab is becoming an increasingly popular and promising line of business.
Profitability
A professional photo lab can bring up to one hundred thousand dollars of income per month. At the usual point, this figure is five times smaller. As for the profitability of individual services that are carried out in a professional photo lab, it can reach not only hundreds, but also thousands of percent.
Thus, the turnover of some companies in black and white development is almost nine hundred dollars. The cost of spent chemicals does not exceed 93 dollars.
The first steps
To organize their business, a novice entrepreneur will need to draw up a business plan for a darkroom. This document should reflect all the main aspects of the upcoming project. You will need to register as an LLC or IP. This will legitimize the work of the darkroom.
Range of services
The business plan of the darkroom should reflect the characteristic differences of your company from ordinary photo points. For the activities of any prolab, a fairly wide range of additional services is characteristic. Among them are the following:
- manual printing from negative - both color and black and white;
- development of all existing types of films, in the list of which are slide and black and white;
- machine optical printing format fifty to seventy-five centimeters;
- contact seal;
- large format inkjet printing, which is made on a variety of materials (paper, tracing paper, canvas, etc.);
- various types of digital services.
Quality control
A darkroom business plan should only use expensive chemicals. Moreover, their composition should be checked daily. This will allow for constant quality control and compliance with all the subtleties of the process. Professional photo laboratories should not save on paper, despite the fact that, on manual printing, a quality image has an average of three defective ones.
To create images demanded by discerning customers, prolab employees should work only in special gloves and in places that are equipped with compressors to remove dust from the negatives with compressed air. When developing slide (most capricious) films, the use of a frame machine should be provided. This will eliminate the contact of mechanical elements of the equipment with slides.
Equipment
How to open a darkroom? First of all, you need to purchase modern equipment. The business plan of the darkroom should not be considered as another option. Buying the necessary devices will require large financial expenses.
In the event that equipment for professional photo printing is not leased, a starting capital of at least two hundred thousand dollars will be required. When counting on high returns, from 250 to 300 thousand dollars should be put into action.
The basis of all the devices that the laboratory should be equipped with for demanding customers is digital and optical machines. Depending on the configuration, their cost can be from 100 to 200 thousand dollars. A not entirely new high-quality monitor optical minlab will cost much less.
Its cost will be from 35 to 40 thousand dollars. The price of equipment will depend on many factors. Among them are print formats and technology performance. But it should be borne in mind that the acquisition of digital equipment in the secondary market is associated with high risks due to possible problems in the process.
Complex equipment for the darkroom includes powerful computers and various peripheral devices (scanners, printers, etc.). Moreover, all of them must meet certain requirements.
So, a modern laboratory for printing high-quality images should be equipped with flatbed or film scanners. Printers should be either inkjet color, or sublimation. For printing photographs in the laboratory, the availability of developing equipment is required. In this case, standard equipment will not be enough.
A self-respecting professional photo lab should be equipped with a slide development machine. Its cost is about thirty thousand dollars. When rendering services for processing black-and-white film, ordinary tanks will be needed.
In the case of mechanization of this process, it is advisable to buy a developing machine. For manual printing, you will need a professional type enlarger. Experts recommend purchasing it in the secondary market, where it is offered for one and a half to two thousand dollars.
Staff recruitment
The following employees should be in the staff list of a professional darkroom:
- two or three order receivers, who are simultaneously entrusted with the function of selling goods displayed on the trading floor (salary - from 300 dollars);
- from four to six laboratory assistants, two or three operators, and the same number of workers showing films (the salary of each from 500 dollars);
- accountant (from 300 dollars);
- the technologist responsible for the production process, as well as for quality control (salary - from a thousand dollars).
The risks
Investments in a professional photo lab are invested in liquid equipment.Thus, the risk of an unsuccessful project is reduced to zero. An indicator of a successful business is the development during the month of ten thousand films or printing over the same period of two hundred thousand photographs. It is worth striving for such a volume.
