Its all about image.


That old saying, minus its sometimes negative connotations, arguably could be the motto for Chromastat Inc., a professional-quality photo lab at 725 E. Third.


Due partly to a reputation for high-end work that the company has built up here over nearly 20 years, it has managed to remain viable, its owners say, despite the weak economy and a trend toward filmless digital photography.


I feel that were actually doing better than most, says Randy Forbes, the companys president and majority owner. The whole industry is in transition right now, along with the economy, and photography is definitely a luxury item.


Chromastat, which employs eight people counting Forbes and co-owner Calvin Lea, processes color and black-and-white film and makes machine and custom prints. It also offers services such as photo restoration and transferring images from slides or negatives onto compact discs.


Its customers range from amateur camera buffs and professional portrait photographers to private companies, government agencies, and medical institutions. Most of its customers are in the Inland Northwest, but it has done work for many that are more distant, such as an embassy worker who periodically has sent it slides for processing from around the world.


Through a division called Forbes Angiography Service that predates Chromostat, it also provides ophthalmic-photography processing services to eye clinics and ophthalmologists. Ophthalmic photography is a form of medical imaging that deals with disorders of the eye.


One such procedure, called fluorescein angiography, involves injecting a fluorescent dye into a patients arm, then using a specially equipped camera to photograph the dye as it travels through the vessels in the retina. Those pictures are used to help identify retinal disease and determine appropriate treatment.


Chromastat derives the largest share of its revenueprobably around 30 percentfrom the work it does for portrait photographers, with serious enthusiasts called prosumers and other amateurs accounting for roughly another 25 percent, Forbes says. Corporate and institutional customers contribute probably 20 percent to that mix, with medical-related work making up the other 25 percent, he says.


The companys name is a melding of the words chroma, which means color, or chrome, which is an acronym for transparencies, and stat, from the Latin word statim, which means immediately.


Post Sept. 11 drop-off


Chromastat has endured financial swings over the years, but was on a record pace for gross revenue in 2001 until the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, after which orders fell off sharply, Forbes says. He declines to disclose the companys revenues, but says they ended up flat in 2001 and crept upward by just half of 1 percent last year, which he described as encouraging considering the industrys recent struggles.


Were on zero growth right now, and were holding on, he says. Weve done some restructuring, so cash flow has improved over last year.


Forbes, a third-generation professional photographer, studied photography at a junior college in San Diego, where he grew up, then became an ophthalmic photographer, receiving his training at Mercy Hospital in San Diego.


I really enjoyed medicine, and being able to work in that specialized field allowed him to pursue both of his main interests, he says.


He started a mobile angiography service there, using a specially outfitted 25-foot motor home, and later founded an ophthalmic-photography department at the University of California at San Diego. He founded Forbes Angiography Service in San Diego in 1979, initially to do work for a large health-maintenance organization there, and moved the business here in 1984, lured primarily by the desire to find a better family environment.


Forbes bought a 20-acre, 2,400-tree orchard in the Green Bluff area northeast of Spokane shortly after arriving here, with the idea of making that his main business focus and using Forbes Angiography for supplemental income.


He says, though, that, After six months of pruning trees, I realized that wasnt going to make it. Financially, it just wasnt viable.


He turned the orchard back over to the previous owners, and in late 1985 bought an old 1,400-square-foot former residence at 721 E. Second, where he founded Chromastat. The business initially did just custom black-and-white and E-6 transparency processing and print work, and employed just himself, his wife, Bridget, and a student who worked part time.


Lea, who had been working as photo-department manager at Huppins Hi-Fi Photo & Video Inc. here, joined Chromastat in late 1987, becoming part owner of the business a year later.


Lea had a much broader perspective of the market and had a sales background, both of which proved to be big boosts to the company, Forbes says. At Leas urging, the company began offering color photo-lab services less than a year after his arrival, which caused sales to jump, he says.


Lea says, It really opened a lot of doors for us.


In 1998, to accommodate expanded equipment and work-space needs, the two men bought the adjacent 3,000-square-foot, two-story building that Chromastat now occupies and moved the business there.


Its space now has the classic busy feel, somewhat cluttered look, and familiar chemical smellto a veteran journalist, at leastof a long-established photo lab. Flanking a long reception counter on the buildings lower floor, which serves as its store front from a rear parking lot, are separate work spaces where orders are processed and billed, some of the slide-related work is done, photos are restored and scanned digitally, and large-format prints are made.


Most of the equipment, though, is on the upper floor, including two large mini-lab machines called proofers, high-volume color negative and slide processors, a daylight enlarger, and separate dark rooms for custom color and black-and-white work, each with its own print processor. In another room on that floor is a machine for transferring images from roll film onto CDs.


To maintain exacting consistency, Chromastat uses a specially equipped computer to monitor the mix of processing chemicals and the accuracy of the colors being produced by its various machines, and to measure them against Eastman Kodak Co. standards.


Chromastat has begun offering some digital services over about the last year, responding to the digital-photography market trend that has cut sharply into the traditional film and photo-finishing industrys revenues. However, Forbes and Leastill staunch believers in the quality, consistency, and color portrayal of film photographyremain cautious in their approach to it.


Lea says, Were really scrambling along with a lot of other labs on how to balance that. He claims that many businesses in the industry have been forced to close their doors after jumping into digital services too quickly without knowing how to make them profitable.


Kodak recently responded to slipping sales by acquiring rapid film-processing technology that will enable its retail-based photo kiosks to convert a roll of film into a digital CD in seven minutes, eliminating traditional developing and scanning steps.


Lea says the digital photography trend has had a noticeable impact on Chromastats business over the last two years and likely will have a more substantial effect in coming years. He contends, though, that there still is confusion about the much-touted capabilities and benefits of digital photography, and he says he has seen many customers who had converted to digital coming back to film.


What I really see in the digital world is a dumbing-down of what quality is. Its whatever you get off of your inkjet printer, Lea says. Films not going away. Its still the cheapest, highest-quality, archive-able way to store images.