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Plant and machine operators, and assemblers · code 8132

Photographic products machine operators

Photographic products machine operators operate and monitor equipment which makes photographic film and paper, and which processes exposed photographic film and makes prints. Tasks include - (a) operating and monitoring equipment which makes photographic film and paper; (b) operating, monitoring and testing photographic processing and printing equipment, and maintaining operational standards; (c) preparing exposed film for different processing batches in dark rooms and dark chambers; (d) inspecting images, films and prints, and adjusting settings on printmaking equipment to produce the required colour, brightness, contrast, number, size and type of prints; (e) adjusting settings and running automatic developing equipment; (f) operating equipment to transfer film to videotape or other electronic media; (g) performing photographic processing-related tasks; (h) operating automatic equipment (in retail establishments) to develop colour negatives, prints and slides. Examples of occupations classified here: - Colour developer (film) - Darkroom technician - Developing machine operator (photography) - Enlarging machine operator - Photograph enlarger - Photographic film machine operator - Photographic film printer - Photographic processor - Photograph printer Some related occupations classified elsewhere: - Photographer - 3431 - Photolithographer - 7321

None of this job's tasks scored high enough to count. It ranks 215 of 427 for holding up against AI.

Also known as

  • photographic developer
  • motion picture film developer

Job titles from the EU's ESCO list. Search for any of them on the jobs page and you'll end up here.

72.8
Holds up
against AI Not Exposed

AI could take on 27.2 of 100, on average
so it holds up at 100 − 27.2 = 72.8

That's the whole sum, and you can check it against the ILO's study.

41.3
How hands-on
out of 100

From O*NET, matched to one US job

38.4
How fiddly
and cramped

finger skill 41.1 · hand skill 39.3 · cramped spaces 34.8 · averaged

Kind of hands-on work · hands-on under 50 Less than half hands-on

Less than half of this job is hands-on. Robots still matter, but for a smaller part of the work, so we don't sort it any further.

estimated O*NET 31.0 BLS occupational crosswalk chain ISCO-08 to 2010 SOC (Aug 2012, rev. Jun 2015); 2010 to 2018 SOC (Nov 2017); O*NET-SOC 2019 taxonomy data 0.7-work-setting measures chosen by Frey & Osborne (2017) · the grouping is a sorting, not a measurement

What this number leaves out This job rates 41.3 out of 100 for how hands-on it is. The score above only looks at AI tools, not robots, but for work this far from the physical that matters less.

The tasks behind the score

The score is the average of these. A job is really a bundle of tasks, and an average can hide how uneven that bundle is.

The task AI could do most of scores 34.5, while the average is 27.2. A big gap means some of this job is wide open to AI and some of it barely at all. That's quite different from a job where everything sits somewhere in the middle, even when the averages match.

  1. 34.5

    Adjusting settings and running automatic developing equipment

    Low
  2. 32

    Operating, monitoring and testing photographic processing and printing equipment, and maintaining operational standards

    Low
  3. 31.5

    Performing photographic processing-related tasks

    Low
  4. 28.8

    Operating automatic equipment (in retail establishments) to develop colour negatives, prints and slides

    Low
  5. 27.8

    Inspecting images, films and prints, and adjusting settings on printmaking equipment to produce required colour, brightness, contrast, number, size and type of prints

    Low
  6. 25

    Operating equipment to transfer film to videotape or other electronic media

    Low
  7. 19.5

    Operating and monitoring equipment which makes photographic film and paper

    Very Low
  8. 18.3

    Preparing exposed film for different processing batches in dark rooms and dark chambers

    Very Low

8 tasks · the High to Very Low labels are the ILO's

from the source Working Paper 140, Generative AI and Jobs 2025 index data 0.7-work-setting

Helped, or replaced?

The score above can't tell a tool that makes you faster from one that does the task instead of you. Jobs and Skills Australia looked at those two things separately, and this is their result, matched to this job.

3 Australian jobs match this one, and we've simply averaged them. Treat the numbers as a rough guide.

AI helps you
61.7
AI does it for you
31.3

Helping wins by 30.4 points.

estimated Our Gen AI Transition (Gen AI Capacity Study) September 2025 detailed data release data 0.7-work-setting matched to Australian jobs 3999, 7114, 7119

Compared with similar jobs

There are 39 jobs in the “Plant and machine operators, and assemblers” group, averaging 80.3. This one is below that.