Cost of printing?

[Bill]

How about:
http://www.bonusprint.com/us/quality.htm

18c/print with a flat shipping rate of $1.99 within the US and $2.99
outside the U.S.

Once again, I'm in Canada, so doing the math on exchange rates that
works out to 41 cents per print delivered here. If there are any taxes
or other variables, the price goes up even more.

It's cheaper to get my prints done locally, and even cheaper to print my
own digital photos at home.

 

[Bill]

HP is notorious for not supporting new operating systems. The microsoft
drivers never work half as well as the original drivers. I suppose the
easy answer is to just upgrade the hardware more frequently.

Until this year, I had been an HP fan and owned three of their printers,
two of them inkjets. I always had HP drivers for Windows available and
they worked fine. I also don't upgrade that often...only when demands
for new features take hold. I haven't had a failure of any printer yet.

But it's
hard to believe you've never run out of ink!

I've been refilling cartridges for years and I always have extra ink or
cartridges on hand. The same goes for paper...I buy new stock before I
run out...it's not that hard to plan ahead a few days.

For now maybe, but I'm betting that eventually Kodak will come out with
their own kiosk, and as they become more widespread, prices will probably
come down even more.

I don't know if prices can get much lower. Remember that just as I have
to buy ink and paper, the stores that run these machines must also
supply their machines. The costs of paper and ink haven't really changed
much over the years - I think as production costs dropped, the rate of
inflation or corporate greed has kept the prices steady.

If a "decent" inkjet costs $200, then I can get
close to 700 prints made at Wal-Mart, before I even buy any paper or ink.

But you can't print out a pamphlet, letter to mom and dad, resumes,
funny pictures, email, or anything else like that at the WalMart
machine.

My printer is mainly for general use, not photos. It just happens to
print such good photos at a low price that makes it worthwhile to start
doing my own digital processing full time.

Right now most of my printing is still from my 35mm Canon SLR. The
prints I've done here have been from my 3 megapixel pocket camera. I was
waiting for prices to drop on the Canon 10D, but instead they introduced
the new 300D/DigitalRebel at a grand less than the 10D. It has most of
the features of the 10D, primarily a good 6.3 megapixel image sensor,
DOF preview, burst mode, etc., which I would want in a digital SLR, so
I'll probably get one of those. Then upgrade to something better/newer
in a few years as needed.

Then you can consider quality. I haven't seen *any* inkjet output that
has the Dmax of chemical process.

Maybe not in a technical sense, but in a visual sense, side-by-side
comparisons are so close as to not be an issue - my prints are so close
to lab quality that several friends and coworkers have initially been
fooled. One didn't believe me and even looked on the back of the print
to see if it had a brand name on the paper!

Oh, and for those who say inkjet prints don't last, I have yet to come
across a faded print that I've printed. I have prints from the Canon
inkjet that are now 6 months old and they still look like they were
printed yesterday. I also have prints up to 3 years old from my old HP
inkjet that have not shown any signs of fade.

Granted, it hasn't been 20 years yet, but the keepers have all been
archived anyway.

 

[Bill]

Then you can consider quality. I haven't seen *any* inkjet output that
has the Dmax of chemical process.

Maybe not in a technical sense, but in a visual sense, side-by-side
comparisons are so close as to not be an issue - my prints are so close
to lab quality that several friends and coworkers have initially been
fooled.

Until they wet a finger and dragged it across.[/QUOTE]

Sorry Elmo...not my prints!

With some photo paper perhaps, but not with Canon paper or the much less
expensive Office Depot paper I normally use. My prints are waterproof,
and that's not an exaggeration.

I've actually tested it by running water over some prints and firmly
rubbing the prints with my fingers. No smearing at all...that impressed
the hell out of me.

Or until you pull that photo out of the album a year from now.

I have plenty of photos in my albums from my HP printer that are 3 years
old, and they don't show any fade.

I also have a few prints from my Canon that are 6 months old and they
have not had any kind of protection at all...just stuck to the fridge
with a magnet, and they haven't faded.

Granted my fridge isn't in direct sunlight, but there is some ambient
light in there during the day.

 

[bob]

My daughter has used Wal Mart (Fuji Frontier) for processing her digital
images. The image quality is highly variable.

So you're saying that if you take the same file in on two different days,
then you get back to very different prints?

As long as you get back the same results from the same files, then it's
just a question of learning to use the new hardware, same as any other
printer.

Bob

 

[bob]

Or until you pull that photo out of the album a year from now.

I've actually got inkjet printouts that are 5 to 7 years old that look
new. They've been kept in stacks of paper on open shelves, or in file
cabinets.

I've got a copule samples of inkjet output that are 5 to 7 years old that
have been taped up on the wall (with duct tape, no less...) from HP 1200c
printers that are clearly faded. Not too bad looking, considering their
age, but not new.

Also had a mounted, laminated, E sized illustration printed on an HP 755,
which sat in a back room in the office for about 8 years. It still looked
new. We lent it out to someone who left it exposed to direct sunlight for
about a year and it was completely washed out when we got it back.

My conclusion from all of this is that if you keep your prints dark, then
they will last a very long time, just like chemical prints. Exposed to
moderate light, the will fade quite a bit faster. Exposed to strong
sunlight, any UV sensitive material will fade in short order.

Bob

 

[picopirate]

I think this new Fuji Kiosk system is really the "killer app" for
photography. When it catches on, its going to greatly reduce color print
film use, because it's easier and cheaper (and more flexible, if you
feel like going there), and it's going to greatly reduce the demand for
inkjet printers, for the same reason.

Bob

I asked this in rec.photo.digital but got zero responses. I read in a review
that you can order reprints from fugifilm.net (images are supposedly stored
up to a week after visiting kiosk) but that site does not exist, and the
official fugifilm site has no link to access kiosk in the field. Anyway is
it possible to order prints taken online? Is there a way to upload images
to the kiosks via the web so I can save a trip to the photolab?

 

[Wolf Kirchmeir]

On Thu, 04 Sep 2003 22:18:50 GMT, picopirate wrote:

=>I asked this in rec.photo.digital but got zero responses. I read in a review
=>that you can order reprints from fugifilm.net (images are supposedly stored
=>up to a week after visiting kiosk) but that site does not exist,

I'm not surprised, seeing as how the company's name is
spelled with a 'j', as in Fuji.

 

[Ron Cohen]

She wouldn't go back to have them reprinted. Since they are all saved on CD
and that she now has a Canon s820 she will reprint them as desired.
Sometimes the images were quite dark when they came back and then printing
the same image using a Canon s820 the images were bright and clear. They
matched the screen image quite well. Other, the images she got back were
quite good and matched the same image printed on the s820. I came to the
same conclusion that it would be possible to get different results if the
same prints were taken in on different days. I know the Fuji hardware can
produce great prints. I think it was a personnel issue with the photo
technicians. Some are better than others and some just don't care how the
pictures turn out. All this is now a moot point since I've recently
purchased an s820 for her. Using Ilford paper from Sam's each 4x6 (actually
4.25 x 5.5 if printed 4up using the supplied Easy Photo Print) will only
cost her 6¢. Ink isn't a consideration since I do a lot of refilling and
have a large quantity of bulk ink on hand. However, based on what the ink
originally cost, that would add approximately 1/3¢ to each print.

 

[bob]

Is there a way to upload images
to the kiosks via the web so I can save a trip to the photolab?

You can upload images to walmart.com to be picked up at any specific store.

This has great potential, in that you can upload to a store near someone
else, like the grandparents, and they can just drop by at their convenience
to get the pictures.

For me, it's faster to drive to the store with the CF card than it is to
upload the pictures, if there are more than just a few.

Bob