  This is the first paper of a series investigating the scaling relations of
early-type galaxies in clusters. Here we illustrate the multi-band imagery and
the image reduction and calibration procedures relative to the whole sample of
22 clusters at 0.05 < z < 0.25. We also present the detailed surface photometry
of 312 early-type galaxies in 7 clusters in the first redshift bin,
z~0.025-0.075. We give for each galaxy the complete set of luminosity and
geometrical profiles, and and a number of global, photometric and morphological
parameters. They have been evaluated taking into account the effects of seeing.
Internal consistency checks and comparisons with data in the literature confirm
the quality of our analysis. These data, together with the spectroscopic ones
presented in the second paper of the series, will provide the local calibration
of the scaling relations.
