Employment Photographic process workers held about 63,000 jobs in 1992. About 3 out of 10 worked for portrait studios and commercial laboratories that specialize in processing the work of professional photographers for advertising and other industries. Employers prefer applicants who are high school graduates or those who have some experience or knowledge in the field. As preparation for precision work, proficiency in mathematics, art, and computer science, as well as photography courses that include instruction in film processing are valuable. Such courses are available through high schools, vocational-technical institutes, private trade schools, adult education programs, and colleges and universities.
Some workers attend periodic training seminars to maintain a high level of skill.
Manual dexterity, good hand-eye coordination, and good vision, including normal color perception, are important qualifications for precision photographic process workers. They must be comfortable with computers and able to adapt to technological advances. Photographic process machine workers generally advance from jobs as machine operators to supervisory positions in laboratories. Precision photographic process workers generally earn more as their skill level and the complexity of tasks they can perform increases. Job Outlook Employment of photographic process workers is expected to increase about as fast as the average for all occupations through the year 2005.