Photo Finishing Stores

Photographs have been around for a long time and taking pictures today is as popular as it was years ago. People of all ages love to sit down and go through their photo albums and see pictures of their children growing up right before their eyes or a vacation they went on together. Photographs let us hang onto all those precious, special memories of places, people, events or times, captured in a picture. Photo finishing stores play an important role in this because they develop the pictures that freeze these special times and moments.

You find photo finishing stores in a variety of locations, such as inside large department stores and drug stores, in shopping malls, plazas or in their own store. Some larger photo finishing stores are full service and not only do photo finishing but sell digital cameras, 35 mm cameras, video cams and offer a complete line of equipment and services. They also do repairs; sell film, photo albums and other necessary or miscellaneous items.

Photo finishing stores have state of the art processing labs that process and print your pictures, some in less than one hour. They print pictures from film, memory cards, negatives, slides and other sources. Some other services they often provide are posters and enlargements, photo restoration, passport photos in only a few minutes and slide scanning and negative services. People that work in photo finishing stores often start their training by working with experienced photo finishers or by taking some basic photography classes and training. Photo shops are also able to work with new digital photography and allows customers to submit pictures for development over the internet.

Common work activities include:

• Discussing photo finishing and development options with customers, showing examples and even making recommendations for the most appropriate development.
• Recording customer data on computer bases or in customer record books as needed.
• Developing photos from various types of film using photo developing machines.
• Sorting, compiling and billing for photographs that have been developed.
• Contacting customers when their film is ready either by phone, email or other telecommunication.
• Anwering customer questions, assisting customers with purchasing photo accessories and ensuring the customer is satisfied.