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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..."
WEll part of the issue is the cost of the ink. Print shops buy more and therefore it's cheaper, they also have higher grade equipment that doesn't break as often as our home eqipment (broken heads come to mind, then oyu have to replace the whole cartridge, OR buy a new printer in the case of Epson).
However, despite it being cheaper elsewhere, if you need a print right away for some reason, I would hate to not have the ability to push one out every 2 minutes.
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uhmmm, film *can* become obsolete...
every once in a while there is a new color process created. the current color print film process is c41. the one before that is c22 (i am not aware of any c's from 23-40). besides each process having it's own processing chemicals and steps (boy are you in trouble if you have unprocessed c22), they have their own color balance.
most color printers have several channels with a channel devoted to a particular brand and speed of c41 process film. i took some old (1970s?) negatives in and couldn't get good prints. why? they didn't want to spend the time and paper to create a color balance for a handful of photos. i don't blame them. that was the first c22 stuff they had ever seen. i had to send it to a specialist to get it printed. and it was not cheap.
i also feel sorry for people who have negatives that are not 35mm. there are a lot of labs that can't print from 110, disk, 126 (it's close) and other small sizes.
eric
Why print at all?
Ok, a bit overstated, but I'm serious. Of all the pictures you take, how many actually _need_ to be printed? I'd say those few you want to hang on a wall, or put in a frame. For most people that is a precious few photographs per year; if nothing else, the amount of wall space and kindly relatives to foist the prints off to is very limited.
I take on the order of 10k pictures a year, thanks to the ease of digital photography. Perhaps 1/10, or about 1000, is actually worth saving at all (since it's so easy and cheap, it's usually a good idea to take multiple exposures of any one subject to avoid duds). Of those, maybe 2/3 are purely archival - they are a memento of some event or something, and I'd like to keep it, but they aren't really of any significance. If I lost them it would be a shame but not really a big deal. Of the rest (interesting enough to actually post-process), most of them will end up on Flickr, or emailed to people that may be interested, or simply shown on-screen. The number of images I would actually want to have hanging number in the single digits - and I have yet to go to the trouble to do so.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Personally, I'm a fan of iPhoto. It's a brainless way to imports pictures and order prints.
But, in an ideal situation I would be able to pay for prints via iPhoto and pick them up an hour later at the local 1 hour photo. As of now, I need to wait 24 hours before I get them.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
Plus, if you're into semi-illegal things, you'll know that the photo clerks are required by law to turn you into the cops if you try to get prints of scary pictures. I'd much rather the people with said prints do not set foot near photo equipment I run -- if I was in their position.
Or, even things that aren't illegal might run you some trouble. I once had a roll of film take weeks to come back (it was panoramic, so it took a bit longer anyway), the store ended up claiming that they had misplaced the pictures in the back of a box. I really don't believe that story though, I think they got investigated before they made it back to me because I had a bunch of pictures of my family's burned out car, which had caught fire while my mom was driving it down the road one day. I think that the clerks saw the pictures, got suspicious, and forwarded it on to authorities. Or maybe I'm just paranoid and they really did temporarily misplace my pictures.
Eagles may soar, but weasles don't get sucked into jet engines...
The majority of my non-US friends opt to buy unofficial inks by the gallon from China. That easily slashes the cost to 70-80%. That being said, they print a lot. So, the ink isn't wasted. The quality of the print is virtually the same and the printer doesn't break down either, regardless what printer companies want you to believe.
An amateur photographer who doesn't really care how their prints look. The prices as the professional photo labs will make you shoot your drink out your nose, but you DO get what you pay for, too. Unfortunately there aren't usually enough professional photographers around to support the labs in the area and so the professional labs are always going out of business. It would appear to me that the professional photo developer is something of a dying breed. Well not to mention that the industry doesn't seem to pay enough for anyone to actually make a career out of it...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
If you RTFA, the "chemical" process from 50-10 years ago produces photos that fade after only a couple of decades. TFA noted that BOTH home photo printers and the store printers use NEW methods that are BOTH *ESTIMATED* to last 80-100 years.
Are you a stress test scientist? Can you really so easily dismiss things like intensive UV testing, heat exposure, and chemical damage?
It's still all moot -- even if you ARE "expert" enough to know that home photo-printers are "unproven," the brand-new technology in store printers is equally "unproven."
Then again, so are DVDs to reel-to-reel, CDs to wax cylinders . . . Hell, compared to cave paintings and carving on rocks, Papyrus is "unproven."
I saw that movie with Robin Williams. It's about an obsessed lonely guy. Everything else int the movies is fiction :)
Plus, if you're into semi-illegal things, you'll know that the photo clerks are required by law to turn you into the cops if you try to get prints of scary pictures. I'd much rather the people with said prints do not set foot near photo equipment I run -- if I was in their position.
Semi-illegal? I know a guy who spent four years fighting through the courts over production and possesion of child porn charges after he took some photos of his kids playing with some other kids at the beach. He had his house raided and his (legal) fetish porn stash seized. His kids were taken away for a week to be 'evaluated' for signs of abuse. He spent a fortune on lawyers. All because some photo clerk got a hardon over pics of small kids in bathing suits.
The paranoia is so bad you don't need to do anything wrong, you just need to not be seen doing everything right.
The best market for these might be the low-volume user for whom a trip to a photo processing place just to make 2 or 3 prints every now and then is too much trouble and expense. My in-laws gave me a Photosmart last Christmas, which I never would have bought for myself, but I really appreciate the ability to crank out maybe 5 or 6 prints per month to send to relatives and whatnot. At that one-at-a-time rate it just isn't worth it to me to go anywhere to get digital prints. If this printer lasts 6 or 8 years I will happily pay to replace it.
But of course by then the big thing will probably be digital paper with Harry Potter style images that move around and talk.
This article talks about the problem many photographers are now having...for many (like myself) digital has made it cheaper amd easier than maintaining a professional darkroom (Kodak in my case)...
I got rid of the equipment before I got my digital camera, but it just became too expensive with the cost of chemicals, photo paper, bulbs, etc...not to mention it takes up way too much room...
Now, professional photographers (the ones in the phonebook) can probably afford their own digital photolab...and many of them still use large format (which is higher quality than digital right now)...Medium format digitals have just begun to appear...but the "backyard" photographer can't afford that and so the choice you are left with is to print them yourself (with a photo printer) or trust someone like Walmart/CVS to print them for you...
trip to a photo processing place
Huh? Who uses those. Use an on-line photo printer. Delivered to your door in a day or two and probably cheaper too (one of them always has a special offer on).
Costco- a half mile from work- I walk in with an SD card, have lunch lunch, go back to the photo counter and walk out with 4x6's at $0.29 or 8x10s on matte for $0.99 a pop if I need them, plenty cheap enough.
So yeah- some of us can get it more conveniently than waiting for the on-line printer delivery.
Isn't there online photo services where you live? :-S
You know, where you upload your stuff and get it delivered?
I agree there's still the delays involved though.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Anyone know of site that does this is the U.S. or at least in North America this inexpensively? I'm sure the shipping from Germany would not be cheap, or would atleast place it into the same price range as the sites i've found after taking a quick look.
My subtext is just a figment of your imagination.
Of course they cut off the ends. The common print sizes, 3.5x5, 4x5, 4x6, 5x7, and 8x10 are not all the same aspect ratio. Would you rather they left white un-printed bars on the top and bottom of the image?
Cheaper is not always better.
.29 per print last time I was there), but it's still cheaper and better than printing at home.
Then don't take them to Walmart. There is a real camera shop in my area that prints digital to photo paper. Their machines are probably better than the typical minilab, and they are staffed by people who know what they are doing. The results are always excellent. The cost is a bit more expensive than Walmart (I think