Greetings;

That's wide of the mark by a country mile. No lab is going to give me a
quality hand-balanced print of exactly the part of the negative that I
want for 25 cents. It will be a lot more, and I'll also have to wait a
day or more to get it back.

Printing your own colour work, as I have done for years, allows you the
freedom to be creative and artistic and also by definition you learn a
great deal in the process which further develops your creativity. The
object of doing your own colour printing is not to save money, it is to
have total control of the finished product exactly as you want it to be.
That's worth a lot more than 25 cents a shot.

On the chemical side, there are kits available today which are not too
temperature-sensitive and which allow room-temperature (20degsC)
processing. If you process in trays (as I do) then once the print has
been in the stop-bath, an ordinary black-and-white safelight can be
switched on for the rest of the process. If you get used to where things
are, it really isn't a problem.

I just ran off some 20" x 16" enlargements (40.6 x 50.8 cm) of some
alpine evening views, that sort of satisfaction is worth it all.

My regards, F.C. Trevor Gale.