Do you guys print much
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Though you had a printer??
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"What would I do with the prints?" Exactly. What would you? Think of it this way - you only have so much wall space. And you only have so much desk space.
How much would you spend on a decent printer? £500? And say it lasts 4 years. Factor that into your print costs together with ink supplies. And at end-of-life (when it stops working properly) it becomes yet another lump of inert consumer extravagance that is unlikely to have all its materials properly recycled. The poor planet's already groaning with mountains of discarded STUFF!
Use a lab (or two), and chill about the shopping.
How much would you spend on a decent printer? £500? And say it lasts 4 years. Factor that into your print costs together with ink supplies. And at end-of-life (when it stops working properly) it becomes yet another lump of inert consumer extravagance that is unlikely to have all its materials properly recycled. The poor planet's already groaning with mountains of discarded STUFF!
Use a lab (or two), and chill about the shopping.
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For me, having a printer has improved my photography. I now have a final product to work towards whereas before i just had a load of unedited images on a hard drive.
DSCL is great but i found i didn't use them much because of shipping charges.
DSCL is great but i found i didn't use them much because of shipping charges.
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I ordered a couple of 12x10" and they were 62p each. I wanted to try them out before I committed to buying more but now I've seen them I will be putting in a far bigger order next time as I want some landscapes and a few more portraits printing.
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I enjoy the whole process of photography, from going out with the camera, post processing, printing and framing and hanging.
I don't care if it makes financial sense to have my own printer, I just enjoy doing my own prints, it's all part of the experience for me.
Photography isn't a cheap hobby and a printer is just another part of the expense along with bodies, lenses, tripods, gear bags, filters, accessories, cost of going to locations etc, it's a hobby and I love it.
So I'd say if you fancy printing your own then go for it.
I don't care if it makes financial sense to have my own printer, I just enjoy doing my own prints, it's all part of the experience for me.
Photography isn't a cheap hobby and a printer is just another part of the expense along with bodies, lenses, tripods, gear bags, filters, accessories, cost of going to locations etc, it's a hobby and I love it.
So I'd say if you fancy printing your own then go for it.
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OP
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Which printer you got..
I was thinking of the Canon Pro 10S but now thinking of the 100s..
Do you print alot and do you just swap print in the frames or fill the whole ha ha that what I am worried about ..
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I have the Epson P800 with roll feed.
I wouldn't say I print a lot but enough. The P800 is an A2 and panoramic printer so I tend to print A2 and I've printed a few pano's. I have one I printed off recently which is 1500 x 400mm, I'm offshore but when I get home I've got to mount it and hang it.
I swap my photos out periodically, or rather sporadically. I have prints all over the house, guests are often impressed when they realise that it's all my own work, from taking the photo to printing and framing.
I'm going to buy double sided photo paper (A4) and a photo book and start making albums for the coffee table etc. I think it's a shame to be taking so many photos and just have them buried on a hard drive or on flickr, better to have them where folk can see them.
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I print 2 or 3 images a month on average, usually at around 14x10 and mount them myself in 16x12 mounts. Nothing beats having a physical print IMHO. The prints either get framed for myself or family, are entered into club competitions or are just for me.
I use DS Colour Labs, but these days usually use their fine art papers, typically either Permajet Museum 310 or Permajet Titanium Lustre. The quality is a lot higher than their standard prints IMHO, but is a lot more expensive. However, as I only get 2 or 3 done a month then it isn't so bad.
Simon.
I use DS Colour Labs, but these days usually use their fine art papers, typically either Permajet Museum 310 or Permajet Titanium Lustre. The quality is a lot higher than their standard prints IMHO, but is a lot more expensive. However, as I only get 2 or 3 done a month then it isn't so bad.
Simon.
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I print regularly, if not frequently. I print for my portfolio and for the discussion group I go to every month. I also print my exhibition stuff up to A3 - anything bigger I get done by Photobox.
I use DS Colour Labs if I've got lots of 6x4's to do - less hassle than doing it myself and possibly cheaper.
I use DS Colour Labs if I've got lots of 6x4's to do - less hassle than doing it myself and possibly cheaper.
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You seem to ignore the environmental footprint, which although I'm not equipped to audit it, I imagine is less for lab prints.
You're right about the hard drive. But Flickr (et al) is world-wide sharing. It's resolution-challenged, though, and what may seem lustrous on-screen may lack the size and texture of a print. Horses for courses, and there are many judgements to balance out ...
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As others have said, it's not a financial thing. DSCL are great for cheap prints.Not so great for just one.
However the process of taking a photograph from capture through to a print myself gives me a huge amount of satisfaction. Some get framed (charity shop frams and home cut mount) and hung around the house and some get hung on my office "washing line" (with wooden pegs) so that I can change them out on a whim. Some get blue tacked up.
My suggestion - get a second hand one and have a go. If you enjoy the process and the results, then there's your answer. If you find it frustrating, unrewarding and expensive - stick to DCSL.
However the process of taking a photograph from capture through to a print myself gives me a huge amount of satisfaction. Some get framed (charity shop frams and home cut mount) and hung around the house and some get hung on my office "washing line" (with wooden pegs) so that I can change them out on a whim. Some get blue tacked up.
I think this is the important bit for me. After a day out, I cull and edit down to one or two with the best getting printed. If it's not good enough to print out and admire, I got something wrong. Trick is to learn from that and improve. Getting 30 prints done by DSCL is just a bunch of photos - just like when I collected my developed films from Boots. Doing one - carefully, is very different.
My suggestion - get a second hand one and have a go. If you enjoy the process and the results, then there's your answer. If you find it frustrating, unrewarding and expensive - stick to DCSL.
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Well said Ian. I have to say that I would love to be home printing for the very reasons you so eloquently give, but currently cost and space (those printers are big!) prevent me from doing so.
For what it's worth, prints on fine art paper from DSCL aren't exactly cheap. If I was getting any more printed than 2 or 3 a month, then I think the financial side would be a much closer run thing. I'd really like to find some online resource that could give indicative ink costs per print on different media and papers to do more of a proper comparison.
Simon.
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Going to look at this! I use boots when people just want the odd print and the quality is pretty good.
Tried Jessops for a larger print which was cheap but quality was worse than boots.
Last time i did a local horse show I printed over 100 at a boots kiosk... was there for hours
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The Canon Pixma Pro has a 13ml tank for £10 which is 76p/ml. My Epson Stylus Pro has a 220ml tank for around £90 (new - but I always buy 2nd hand for under half that price) which is 40p/ml (They both use 8 carts). I think I've done a full change of all the tanks over a year of printing quite a bit. I do test prints, A2, A3+ and A4 as well as the occasional silly panorama (Grand Canyon at 12 feet). Take into account the paper cost as well as ink and it's definitely more expensive than DSCL, but I'm lucky in that my second hand 4800 was £20, & the inks I can sometimes get on eBay for silly prices.
When my wife paled at the cost of a cartridge, I pointed out how big they were compared to carts in ordinary printers and worked out the cost per ml. Every printer is going to lay down a different amount of ink, but it won't be hugely different between printers. The cost per ml though seems to be very different depending on cart size. And cart size isn't always easy to find for some printers (I wonder why?).
And then there's paper costs... I've spent a fortune finding the right papers for me. And the printer footprint... https://flic.kr/p/GeCKsV (that's a normal sized chest of drawers it's overhanging!)
But when I compare my archival giclee (lol) fine art prints to DSCL, there's no comparison - not by a mile.
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Thanks Ian. The comparison with DSCL, is that for their standard C Type prints or their archival giclee fine art prints on Permajet / Hannermule paper?
Simon.
ChrisR
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Interesting comparison. Just quickly checked prices on Premier Ink (they are local so I can buy from them without delivery costs). Cartridge costs for the Pro-100 (13ml) and the Pro-10 (14ml) are both £10.99, though full sets are £89 (8) and £99 (10) respectively. The single cartridge costs work out at 85 and 79 p per ml. The Pro-1 cartridges are 36ml and cost £21.99, so 61p per ml; not a huge gain. A full set of 12 is £250 though. I'm wondering if having more cartridges costs more per print, though I can't see a clear reason why.
I suspect though that for intermittent users ink costs will be dominated by cleaning cycles or matt/gloss flushing processes (in Epson???).
For all that, and even though I don't have any of these "proper" photo printers, I get a really different feeling for the images that I print on my consumer-grade (A4) Canon than those that remain on my hard drive. And getting back a bunch of images from DSCL doesn't compare. Being aware that printing is an expensive and time-consuming process makes the selection process more conscious (for me). I think more carefully about the PP, and often after an image has been on the wall for a few days I'll re-process it and print again. Flaws become clearer. I wouldn't want to print the same image several times if each had a £5 delivery charge!
I keep thinking about a better printer, but can't justify it at the moment. Saw a few in the metal at TPS on Saturday, and they are huge!
I have boxes an boxes and drawers and drawers of my own prints. Everything from A4 upto A0 with some large scale panoramas thrown in to. All on a variety of different papers too as well.
They get rotated with stuff on the walls in the home and office studio but we try to make time to often just sit and go through a box or a drawer and look at them. Digital is great and convenient but I don't think you can beat the beauty of a good print.
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Good catch - it's the former. The latter would require me to calibrate my monitor to ensure correct colours/tones etc. And then it's not a case of getting several done. DSCL don't appear to do 13x19, but their 14x20 on Hahnemule is £19+£5 delivery. Quick maths...
In the last year, home printing (very approximated):
I know I've gone through 2 boxes of 25 13x19s (A3"plus") and at least 2 boxes of A4 (50 prints) as well as at least 50 test prints on different A4 papers and various silly panos on roll proofing paper. Call it roughly 100 13x19 prints at £80/25 x 100 = £320 in paper
8 x £65 = £520 for the very estimated one cart per colour. All my carts are sourced off eBay and some (cyan, magenta & yellow) are significantly cheaper than others. Price averaged.
Total cost for 100 prints = £820
DSCL
14x20 "fine art" prints on Hahnemule paper are £19 = £1900 for their "archival" prints on Hahnemule (I don't like Permajet papers) excluding delivery. If you get them one at a time, that's getting very expensive.
A3 "standard" prints are £1.15. so that's £115. Again, ordering lots at once is much more economical.
This confirms what I thought. For bog standard 6x4s in bulk, or even "going large" with their normal paper you can't beat DSCL for cost. For fine art, you're stuck with Hahnemule or Permajet papers and if you order singly, it's more expensive than DIY. Of course there's the printer cost, footprint, and finding one that works for you. The Epson/Canon debate seems to square in the favour of Canon here, but I love my Epson.
This is me too.
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Thanks for that Ian. It confirms some 'back of an envelope' costs that I did recently. I was (and still am) unsure about the ink costs, but it does seem that printing on fine art paper can very quickly swing the cost argument in favour of home printing. Very interesting.
Simon.
Nod
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I have the attention span of an... Oops - got distracted! So I pretty much NEED to print at home rather than wait for an order to come back from any of the usual suspects. I also enjoy seeing the print appear from the out slot. Not quite as magic as seeing a "real" print fade in in a tray under a safelight but as close as we can get these days - and in glorious technicolor to boot! I also do a few prints for Mrs Nod's business and being able to give her a print a couple of minutes after she requests it makes me feel useful too.