Darkroom experience is time consuming.Darkrooms areexpensive to construct, equipand maintain.The user-proce-ssing of photographic materials may be more expensive thancommercial processing.Thusalternative strategies neee:to be considered.
The first method requires that the students film beprocessed by an outside vendor. These outside vendors fallinto two categories:Custom Laboratory and Photofinisher.The differences between the two are usually in the range ofservices offered;The custom lab will do anything neededat a price.This is the place that the professional photog-raphers send their work,Processing is done with extra careand to the customer's specifications.Technicians arespecialists in their area and the resultsare the bestobtainable.A full range of services is available.
The photofinisher on the other hand is a volume processorusually offering a limited range of services.This is notto say that the quality is lessbut only that automatedequipment is frequently usech limiting the range of custom
-;services available.The photofin...sher is able to offer these
services at a reduced cost through automation andmass production.
The studonts need instruction in how to seek out thoseservices, how to evaluate the services and how to placeorders (communicate) to receive the services desired;Evenif the photographer has access to a darkroom; the use ofoutside vendors is warranted when the desired results are
beyond the scope or expertise of the photographer.
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