In today's challenging money-driven world, several business ventures are cropping up like mushrooms. For young enterprising individuals, who would choose to work on their own time, exploring businesses which require a relatively small start up capital and manpower is a very popular option. One such business is home based photo printing and desktop publishing shop.

The requirements for starting up a photo printing and desktop publishing shop can be very minimal. One can begin with the very basic equipment such as a personal computer, a photo printer, scanner, a digital camera, photo papers and ink.

Personal computers for this type of business should at least have a memory and program specifications necessary to run photo editing and lay-outing programs such as photo shop, in design, gimp or Corel. In choosing a printer, find one that is cost efficient.

Printers which may be expensive turn out to be cheaper in the long run when ink costs and printing efficiency is figured in the computation. Choose printers that can give you quality prints on photo and special papers and stickers. Eventually you can expand your business into printing photos on coffee mugs, shirts, pins, bags and tablets!

Some printers also now come with photo copiers and scanners. Determine if this would suit your business needs. Consider that several customers may not have their photos, especially their old baby shots in digital form and may need to be scanned.

Of course, a digital camera, a high pixel capacity compact camera or more preferably a digital SLR would be necessary. Some customers may not have their photos with them or may want to have their photos taken by you. Compared to just being given a photo, be it a digital soft file or an actual hard photo, having you take the photo yourself would allow you to have more leverage in terms of creative space and image control.

This way you can control lighting and contrast, angles and focus, right from the very beginning. Of course, such photos are best taken with a digital SLR camera rather than a compact camera. But if your initial start up capital won't cover the costs, then a compact camera will do. This may be a bit limiting but you will eventually be able to make necessary photo adjustments on your computer.

Have lots of fun and interesting backgrounds ready in your computer. They may want to have themselves photographed in front of the Eiffel Tower or the Niagara Falls, or even in the Grand Canyon. Have cartoon backgrounds handy for kids who would like to see themselves beside Mickey Mouse or Bugs Bunny.

More importantly when starting up this business, have lots of fun and is creative. Your business will boom sooner than you think.