photo printing in shop often cheaper than at home

[roytje]

Printing photo's at home is often more expensive then printing photos in the shop. The ink costs are very high. Besides, when printing goes wrong you have to print again, that costs you even more ink, in the shop you only pay the quality photos. You can find the costs of photo printing at my site.

 

[BlasterQ]

What if you use ink refills? Will that drop the cost drastically? Compared to the photo shop?

 

[roytje]

Ink refills will definitely drop the costs radically. Using ink refills is probably cheaper than in the shop. You can check this easily: how much is the price of an original cartridge and how much is the price of a refill cartridge. Example: if the price of an original cartridge is three times the price of a refill cartridge, you go to my site, fill in the measurements of your photo's and you see the costs for your printer. Divide it by three and you find the costs of your photo's printed with the refill cartridges.

Roy

 

[Nifty]

I don't know that I agree. Based on my calculations here: http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=40 I've found that using all OEM parts you get a per print price of $0.06 per print and $0.03 if you refill. Of course there are a LOT of variables, but most of them are accounted for and can be played with and adjusted in my worksheet. Even if you double the amount per OEM prints to $0.12 per print you are still coming out ahead of the cheapest per print price I can find (which is at Costco for $0.14).

Of course there are issues such as longevity that make a photo shop a better option, but the ease of printing at home and the cost savings make home printing a good alternative.

 

[roytje]

$ 0.06 per print? For printing a full color print? I don't think so. I think you base these calculations on manufacturer data (because some of the canon printers do have a capacity of 750 pages for the color pages). But this capacity is bases on 5% coverage per page!!! Print a full color top quality print will then use 20 times as much ink, so that would cost you more than a dollar! Besides, the capacity varies for different printers, even when using the same cartridge. These differences can be huge. For the calculations at my site, we used printer specific data. I think these calculations give the real result.

Roy

 

[Nifty]

I stand corrected.... well, partially. I made a mistake above. You are correct that I used the data from the manufacturer for my per sheet analysis. I mistakenly used the numbers form the 5% coverage per page. I should have used the numbers under the photo column.

Well, I've also made some changes to my calculations based on feedback I've received regarding the actual number of photos that can be printed on a set of cartridges. Based on my calculations if you use OEM carts at $40 a pack then it will cost you 18 cents per print. If you refill the cartridges a print will cost you 9 cents.

I've updated my spreadsheet and you can download it here: http://www.nifty-stuff.com/inkjet-printer-tco.php.

Please play with the numbers based on your printer and usage. If you have suggestions on the calculations, or anything else on the spreadsheet, please give me your feedback on this page:
http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=40

 

[roytje]

18 cent per print? That means you base your calculations on 15% coverage. I still think the result is not correct. Printing a full color top quality photo requires almost 100 % coverage. I think your results are too optimistic. Besides, you have used data for a specific canon printer. I give you an example to illustrate why this is not representative for the real costs:

We have two printers in our database using exactly the same cartridge. For printer number one, the capacity is 440 pages, for the second printer the capacity is 210 pages. This illustrates that you can't calculate costs for all printers based on the data you used. Your spreadsheet is very detailed but I don't think it's representative for the real costs of photo printing. You could check our website to see the huge differences. The Canon print costs are based on two different cartridges, but the costs per page differ for each printer!

 

[Nifty]

Wouldn't 100 percent coverage of each color be a full black photo? Also, are we talking 4x6 prints?

I completely agree that different printers, cartridges, etc. run differently. LOTS of variables... hence the need to be able to tweak each element in the calculation to your specific usage (paper, cost of your printer, etc.). Your calculator is great if people want to compare the manufacturer's data to each other (for example when purchasing a printer), but I don't think your calculator allows people to enter in all the variables they need to make an accurate decision regarding their specific usage. For example, type of paper, cost of printer, refill or not, OEM or not, etc. etc. etc.

As I state on my TCO page:
1) The numbers of pages per cartridge are usually per color and nobody uses the same amount of color for all their documents all the time.
2) Photos use much more ink than what we see printed in the manuals which is based on 5% or 10% coverage.

Ron Cohen said the following:
Because I purchased my ink in 1 pint bottles (480 cc's) that works out to 2880 cc's for a set of six bottles. I can usually print about 40 full coverage 8.5 x 11 sheets before needing to refill when the first low ink warning pops up. At that time I install my entire #2 set of cartridges and then refill the entire set #1. Two of the cartridges will usually take 5cc's to top off the ink reservoir, 3 will take 3 cc's and one takes 2 cc's. This is a total consumption of 21 cc's. I paid less than $70 U.S. incl shipping for the six pints which works out to about 50 per refilling session after printing 40 sheets. My net cost is approx. 1.2 per sheet. Ink purchased in smaller quantities will cost more per ounce, but by any estimate it is a great cost savings.

My response to Ron's great comment:
If I use your ink consumption numbers correctly, I can assume that for a 5 cartridge printer I would get 432 4x6 prints per "set" of cartridges based on 15cc per cartridge, right?

I got this number by taking 15cc per cart x 5 carts = 75 cc. 75/21 to get 3.6 (the number of times I can print 40 full page 8.5 x 11
prints on 75 cc of ink). Finally 3.6 x 40 = 144 full page, or 3 x 144 = 432 4x6 prints?

So, the number that I'm using for photos in the Inkjet Total Cost Of Ownership Spreadsheet is 432 4x6 prints per "cartridge". Of course your numbers will vary based on the number of cartridges in your printer and the amount of ink in each cartridge.

 

[Grandad35]

Roytje - When my Canon i9900 was new with full OEM carts, I was able to print 50 (by actual count) 8.5x11 (borderless) sheets of typical photos at the highest quality settings on glossy photo paper before the first ink chamber emptied (Photo Magenta). There were still a few CCs of ink left in the PM sponge, but I wasnt going to take a chance on ruining the print head to get it out. I then measured and recorded the ink levels in the other ink chambers. Since the sponges in these carts are initially slightly overfilled, I assumed that this overfill was equal to an extra 8 mm of ink in the ink chamber. To make a long story short, the total ink usage was equal to 3.5 full carts. At a cost of $12.00/cart, this worked out to $0.84/sheet for the ink.

If we assume emptying a cart gives to 12 CCs of ink (I believe that this is reasonably close), this works out to about 0.85 CC of ink/sheet. As a sanity check I then dropped 1 CC (as close as I could control it from a refill syringe) of water onto a sheet of regular paper. Thats a lot of water, even when you spread it out over the entire surface, so 0.85 CC/sheet looks reasonable.

Assuming a bulk ink selling price of $25/16 Oz. and a 25% spillage loss, this ink costs 7 cents/CC, or about 6 cents/sheet. Add in 15 cents/sheet for Kirkland Glossy Photo Paper, and I get a total cost of $0.21 per 8.5x11 sheet. Divide these values by 3 for 4x6 prints, assuming that you cut the Kirkland paper to get the 4x6s.

Where am I going wrong?

There are definite benefits to having your photos printed outside, especially if your time is worth very much, if you like the look of a conventional photo, or if you want the prints to be done on a "color calibrated" printer. It's just hard to beat the convenience of being able to print what you want at a moment's notice and avoid making two trips to drop off and pick up your prints.

 

[roytje]

Hi Rob,

I didn't know you based your costs on 4x6. Then the new ink costs you stated after my first comment are a nice average. The variance is quite big for different Canon printers, but it is a nice average though I think when using it as an average it should be slightly higher.

You're right that our calculator isn't able to use all variables, but I think it is as close as you can get. If you have any suggestions to improve it we would like to hear them!

Roy