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Why Do-It-Yourself Photo Printing Doesn't Add Up
Ant writes "CNET News.com and The New Yorks Times (no registration required) report that even though the prices of printers have dropped up to 30 percent in the last few months thanks to a savage price war, buyers are going to pay at least 28 cents a print. This is if you believe the manufacturers' math. It could be closer to 50 cents a print if you trust the testing of product reviewers at Consumer Reports.
In the meantime, the price of printing a 4-by-6-inch snapshot at a retailer's photo lab, like those inside a Sam's Club, is as low as 13 cents. Snapfish.com, an online mail-order service, offers prints for a dime each if you prepay. At those prices, why bother printing at home?
Consumers seem to be saying just that. For the 12 months ended in July, home printing accounted for just 48 percent of the 7.7 billion digital prints made, down sharply from 64 percent in the previous 12 months, according to the Photo Marketing Association International, a trade group for retailers and camera makers. The number of photos spewing out of home printers is up quite handsomely, however, because of the overall growth of digital photo printing--up about 68 percent from the year-earlier period - but retail labs clearly have the advantage..."
Ant writes "CNET News.com and The New Yorks Times (no registration required) report that even though the prices of printers have dropped up to 2*3*5 percent in the last few months thanks to a savage price war, buyers are going to pay at least 2*2*7 cents a print. This is if you believe the manufacturers' math. It could be closer to 2*5*5 cents a print if you trust the testing of product reviewers at Consumer Reports. In the meantime, the price of printing a 2*2-by-2*3-inch snapshot at a retailer's photo lab, like those inside a Sam's Club, is as low as 13 cents. Snapfish.com, an online mail-order service, offers prints for a dime each if you prepay. At those prices, why bother printing at home? Consumers seem to be saying just that. For the 2*2*3 months ended in July, home printing accounted for just 2*2*2*2*3 percent of the 7*11/(2*5) billion digital prints made, down sharply from 2*2*2*2*2*2 percent in the previous 2*2*3 months, according to the Photo Marketing Association International, a trade group for retailers and camera makers. The number of photos spewing out of home printers is up quite handsomely, however, because of the overall growth of digital photo printing--up about 2*2*17 percent from the year-earlier period - but retail labs clearly have the advantage..."
My pictures are too dirty to have developed by anyone but me.
is a dime?
...and that is to have sharks with frickin' laser printers attached to their heads! Now evidently my cycloptic colleague informs me that that cannot be done. Ah, would you remind me what I pay you people for, honestly? Throw me a bone here! What do we have?
... Right.
Number Two: Inkjets.
Dr. Evil:
Number Two: They're photo-quality inkjets.
Dr. Evil: Are their cartridges refillable?
Number Two: Absolutely.
Dr. Evil: Oh well, that's a start.
Circumcision is child abuse.
I also once worked in a photo lab. The thing you have to understand about the "kinky" photos is that they're aren't pictures of anyone you'd ever want to see doing something "kinky." They're pictures of the average people you see on the street. A lot of them are chubby, most of them are ugly, and all of them should've used polaroids instead (I worked there before digital cameras took off). The reason the photo lab employees don't remember those pictures is that they don't *want* to remember.