Above: View from front door. Service counter on left with a customer access light table. Right: Outside of The Darkroom building at night. Opposite page, top: Owners Rick and Cindy Braun (at their daughter's wedding). Opposite page, below: Diana and Beverly at a packaging counter.

I ||j([|:j[j)Wliere the Pros Go B Y L I N D A L . M A Y

For more than 25 years, The Darkroom, located in Fairfield, Ohio (a suburb of Cincinnati), has been serving professional photographers as a full-service, traditional, color photo lab. However, all that changed in April, 2002 when The Darkroom went digital. What has not changed are the wide range of products available and the lab's high standards. Owner Richard (Rick) Braun Jr. refused to make the switch until he felt that digital equipment could produce better images than traditional methods. After all, the lab had to remain quality-conscious while making the transition from optical to digital. Too many profes­sional photographers were counting on The Darkroom for their livelihood to mess up.

The digital learning curve is steep, according to Rick Braun. Before intro­ducing digital products and services to clients, he and his wife, Cindy, who helps manage and operate the busi­ness, spent long hours, for two years, practicing Photoshop, attending class­es and experimenting. Although man­ufacturers make their computer sys­tems appear simple to install and oper­ate, Rick says, it's not that easy.

"Once you learn the computer equip­ment, then you have to tweak the sys­tem to make it fit your particular requirements," Rick explains. "There's much more to consider with digital than with optical. For example, a cus­tomers orders an 8x10 print. Before, the negative would come through the lab and be printed on one of the Lucht package printers. We'd inspect it, and if the color was good, the order was done. With digital, there are all kinds of variables that didn't used to be a problem. Now, we have to consider the resolution, contrast and color satura­tion. Did the photographer over­expose it? Should we bump-up the contrast at the workstation, before it goes into production? The whole ball-game has changed, but the end result is the same, a high-quality print."

Digitally, the workflow through the

tally, cannot overexpose a half a stop to create a richer negative any more. Over­exposed digital images con­tain no data to bring out, like with film. So the lab works very closely with clients, making sure they are both on the same page.

Maintenance issues are different now, but still important. "With digital, there's the computer net­work involved, software issues and human error problems. Someone clicking the wrong button can make us start an order again from scratch. If computers lock­up for some reason, that could be a time-consuming ordeal," Rick Braun says.

The Darkroom still offers traditional C-41 film pro­cessing, plus a full range of digital products and servic­es, including, proofs, prom pictures, senior and under-grad portraits, wedding prints, memory mates, trad­ing cards, magazine covers and digital retouching and print enhancing. After pro-

"Once you learn the computer equipment, then you have to tweak the system to make it fit your particular requirements," Rick explains. "There's much more to consider with digital than with optical. For example, a customers orders an 8X10 print. Before, the negative would come through the lab and be printed on one of the Lucht package printers. We'd inspect it, and if the color was good, the order was done. With digital, there are all kinds of variables that did­n't used to be a problem. Now, we have to consider resolution, contrast and color saturation."

lab is smoother and orders are done faster, according to Rick. However, educating clients is more important these days. To help this process, The Darkroom offers free DPI software to photographers who shoot digitally. For best results, the lab has to know which file format is being used—JPEG, TIFF, or raw? Photographers who shoot digi-

cessing, the film is scanned and fin­ished digitally. Since the digital is final­ly running smoothly, The Darkroom is wondering if there's a need for tradi­tional printing services at all. Rick hopes to educate those die-hard analog clients to the benefits of digital imag­ing. This lab's busy season goes from April through January.

Dick Braun, Rick's father, started The Darkroom in 1978, as a same-day serv­ice, minilab. Black-and-white services were not offered back then, and that has not changed since. In those days, same-day service was fast, because the one-hour lab craze had not yet caught on. After graduating from Findlay University in Findlay, Ohio, with a

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bove left: Owners Rick and Cindy Braun in front of Poli Laser lab. Above right: Nuauna, Cindy and Glenn using DPI's OZE software. Below: Nuauna at the Poli digital scanner.

business administration degree, Rick and his wife Cindy, joined the family business. In 1991, the couple purchased the business from the elder Braun, who still does the bookkeeping for the lab.

For the first few years, The Darkroom catered to the general public. Grad­ually, local professional photographers tried the lab because it was quicker. At first, pros brought in small jobs and proofing orders to test the lab's quality. The pro side snowballed from there, and soon The Darkroom was no longer serving the general public. Now, some of the biggest studios in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana are repeat customers. Rick's wife Cindy is also a regular client of the lab. She shoots weddings on week­ends, where Rick assists, and The Darkroom scans all her negatives and finishes the orders digitally.

Four years ago, Rick moved the lab to a larger location, a mile and a half from the original site where his father started the busi­ness. The lab simply outgrew the old space. This 2700-square-foot building was a former Skyline Chili Restaurant, but the water and wiring were suitable for lab use. An 8xl0-foot sign, atop a 20-foot pole out front, attracts passers-by. From the front count­er, customers can see the main operating areas of the lab. Only the offices and production areas are hidden behind a wall. This lab

also uses Kodak HR-500 and negative scanners.

Because The Darkroom has been around for over two decades, it is a household name in the area, so Rick does not advertise and promote heavi­ly. Word-of-mouth and referrals are this lab's best source of new. clients. Occasionally, Rick personally contacts photographers who have not yet tried The Darkroom, and shows them sam­ples. Only a small ad is run in the Yellow Pages, because professional pho­tographers don't normally choose a lab

that way. Since the website has been up, potential customers can now view samples and get lab information online.

As for the future, nothing major is now in the works. Switching to digital is enough to keep this lab occupied for quite some time. However, Rick is researching larger format printers, and plans to purchase one in time. Soon the lab will be able to transfer files over the Internet, so photographers from other states can easily use its services.

"Even with all my years of photogra­phy experience, I felt like I was starting over when we switched to digital. It wasn't just buying the equipment and immediately pro­ducing great digital work. It was a tough process. But it was well worth the 24 days Cindy and I spent learning and perfecting the system. At some point, conven­tional labs are going to have to embrace digital technology be­cause photographers are starting to go there. And, labs must be able to do the work, or lose clients," Rick Braun concludes.

Readers may contact Rick and Cindy Braun at The Darkroom via e-mail at: rick@thedarkroom.us; or by phone at: (513) 829-3154; or view the website at: www.thedark room.us.

Linda L May is a freelance writer based in Fort Dodge, Iowa.