Olympus-OM
[Top] [All Lists]

[OM] Printing cost, was A quick E-1 poll

Subject: [OM] Printing cost, was A quick E-1 poll
From: Moose <olymoose@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2003 16:54:25 -0700
Out of date costs in the PopPhoto article. September issue just arrived today with comparisons of costs, pros and cons for various methods. Cost comparison of inkjet vs. discount retailer:

4x6  -   $0.25-0.40    $0.19-0.39
5x7  -   $0.55-0.75    $0.49-0.79
8x10 -   $0.75-1.50    $2.99-3.30

Unfortunately, they don't say how many images per sheet of paper they used in their calculations. You can't print four 4x6s on an 8.5x11 sheet, but you can print four typical digital camera 4:3 ratio images at 4x5.3" on one sheet on most printers and need go only very slightly below 4" to do it on any printer. Thus the cost depends on whether it is 35mm or DC images. For album style pages, double sided photo paper gets you 8 images for the price of one sheet.

I don't use the really expensive paper for everyday 4xX prints. I've been using Epson Photo Paper, currently $19.95 for 120 sheets at Costco. Some of my 8x10s on this paper have been hanging where they get a lot of direct sun and open to the air for a couple of years with no noticable deterioration. I've never figured out my ink cost, but paper is less than 17 cents a sheet.

I've been getting my film developed and scanned without any prints. I find viewing the scans on the screen much better than standard 4x6 prints for enjoying/evaluating the images. And that way, no matter how I eventually print them or have them printed, I only pay for the ones I really want, and usually as something larger than 4x6. What with bracketing and those oh so rare shots where I am not near perfect ;-) , the number I want to print are way fewer than the ones I take. The scanning does cost, develop and scan is $18.50 for 36-38 exposures for both 533x800 and 2000x3000 pixel scans of very good quality. I could scan them myself at 2720dpi instead of 2000, but that's time consuming and not worth the tiny difference for the web or prints up to 8x10 for almost all images.

Of course, I still have the negatives for long term storage and possible future scanning at higher resolutions.

Moose

Scott Gomez wrote:

I'll stick by my assessment. For the record, I was comparing home printing of a 
series of prints from negatives on a home inkjet to the cost of getting that 
same series of prints produced on regular photographic paper at a place like 
Costco. See here for an article that might clarify:

http://www.popularphotography.com/article.asp?section_id=4&article_id=487




< This message was delivered via the Olympus Mailing List >
< For questions, mailto:owner-olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx >
< Web Page: http://Zuiko.sls.bc.ca/swright/olympuslist.html >


<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
Sponsored by Tako
Impressum | Datenschutz