The photographic materials were made in a separate section of the chemical plant, in the northern part of Târgu Mureș, using Japanese licensed production.

In Târgu Mureș (formerly known by its Hungarian name, Marosvásárhely) there has been a tradition in the field of photography since the 19th century, in 1865 Péter Ciehulszki taking and processing a series of photographs in his own studio.

"[1] In the early 1950s, József Marx [hu][1] (photojournalist for Új Élet [hu] at the invitation of editor-in-chief András Sütő[2]) offered several local amateur photographers the opportunity to send their photos to exhibitions in the country and abroad, founding in 1953 the Photo Club (Hungarian: Marosvásárhelyi Fotóklub), as one of the artistic circles of the Palace of Culture from Târgu Mureș.

[1] Thus, brothers Imre and Attila Horváth from Târgu Mureș,[1][4] with the help of a sister of theirs and the brother-in-law who both had a photo studio, set up a laboratory in a garage on Baross Gábor Street (now Horea) for production of photographic paper called IMAGO,[4] in 1947.

[5] In 1951,[4] the Romanian state[5] allocated 20 million lei for the construction of a new factory, being completed in 1953 in Piața Mărășești Street (today being the headquarters of the Mureș Department of Agriculture).

[4] In 1962, the photographic paper factory was attached as a section of the "Karl Marx" Chemical Plant [ro] from Târnăveni,[4] further developing its production under the name ARFO.

[4] Taking into account the existing tradition in the field of photography, the communist state government decided to build a factory comprising a wide range of photosensitive materials to meet the needs of industry, health, advertising and art.

[1] In 1981[7] the factory of photosensitive materials within the Târgu-Mureș Nitrogen Fertilizer Plant was put into operation, the section building being designed by the Japanese company Fujitsu to withstand an earthquake of maximum 9.4 degrees on the Richter scale.

[4] The platform of the Photosensitive Materials Plant was located in the northern part of the city, 2.5 km (1.6 mi) away from the urban center, having an area of about 7 hectares (17 acres).

[12] According to a communiqué from Azomureș sent to the Bucharest Stock Exchange, the General Meeting of Shareholders of the company convened at the end of April 2003, decided, following the analysis of the activity of some subunits, to close the photosensitive materials plant.

[13] The main competitors were: Agfa-Gevaert, Fujifilm, Eastman Kodak, Polaroid and 3M, which developed their promotion campaigns, a technique successfully implemented in the underdeveloped local market.

[13] On the other hand, after 1990, entire customer segments disappeared: student circles, factory clubs, syndicate clubs, student circles and associations of photographers and the tendency was to give up, for economic reasons, the processing done by the amateur photographer in their own laboratory and to access modern machining centers with mini-laboratories that eliminate manual processing.

However, in the autumn of the same year, the board of directors gave up the intention to sell the section in bulk due to the fact that the offers received were well below the price set by the General Meeting of Shareholders.

[15] As the Azomureș management could not find a buyer for the department building, which was in a good state of preservation, the company decided in 2016 to transform some spaces to host cultural events.