Pages: [1] 2   Go Down

Author Topic: What does it really cost to make a print at home?  (Read 7638 times)

dreed

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1715
Logged

Mark D Segal

  • Contributor
  • Sr. Member
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 12512
    • http://www.markdsegal.com
Re: What does it really cost to make a print at home?
« Reply #1 on: December 29, 2015, 05:51:08 pm »

I looked through that quickly. Seems to me it is focused only on ink. If you are putting high quality paper through that printer, the cost of paper will exceed the cost of ink by a considerable margin, then depending on throughput the amount to add for depreciation of the printer itself is not insignificant and finally there is wastage from editing errors, the cost of which you need to add to the cost of the prints you keep. I have kept a pretty careful track of all this for 4900 and using Ilford Gold Fibre Silk paper I figure my costs in Canadian dollars are about 1.85 for a single US-Letter size print. The breakdown in CAD is: Depreciation 0.17; Paper 1.32; Ink 0.36. A separate calculation would need to be done for the P800 because the amortization would be lower. But this gives you a fair handle on home printing cost using high quality material.
Logged
Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
Author: "Scanning Workflows with SilverFast 8....."

Eric Myrvaagnes

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 22814
  • http://myrvaagnes.com
    • http://myrvaagnes.com
Re: What does it really cost to make a print at home?
« Reply #2 on: December 29, 2015, 07:57:49 pm »

What I like about the Red River report is that my ancient Epson 3800 seems to cost less (for ink) than any other printer in the list.

For some months now I have used relatively inexpensive Red River papers for initial printing and to show friends, savin the Gold Fibre SilK or Canson Baryta for exhibitions.

Mark's calculations are very helpful in getting a handle on the real costs of prints.

Eric
Logged
-Eric Myrvaagnes (visit my website: http://myrvaagnes.com)

MHMG

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1285
Re: What does it really cost to make a print at home?
« Reply #3 on: December 29, 2015, 09:48:52 pm »

Here's how I have started to approach the cost of personal/home printing:

http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com/p600-part-ii/

The data presented is for the Epson SC P600 using the Epson OEM ink. I'm also working on a similar study for the Canon Pro-1, and Canon Pro-100 printers as well but have not yet published.  I hope to add the Epson P800 and Canon Pro 1000 into the mix this year as well but still raising funds to purchase those new models.   I am using my delivered cost of the printer (B&H Photo price with no rebates, shipping was free) and inks in the plotted amortization curve. The current rebates on this printer would, of course, get you to a lower point on the amortization curve in fewer prints, but the curve is also slowly going asymptotic to the eventual minimum cost per print level which will be essentially independent of the original printer cost unless of course the printer breaks soon ;).

I am now up to about 160 prints on the P600 and the curve is still coming down as projected in the graph when less prints had been made. I'm still not completely out of all the original inks, but nevertheless, I am well into the second set I purchased for this printer.  To date, the printer has caused two reject prints (equivalent to three 8x10 inch borderless prints). They will get accounted for in the next update of the graph.

One rejected print was caused by a dropped wifi connection.  The other was an ink dribble about .5 mm in diameter in the margin of a 13x19 print.  I could have saved that print for personal display but not if it was intended for sale or for gift where only perfect prints will do. Rejects are realities in home printing as well that often don't get considered. Using good color management practices, I don't have a high personal reject rate, but I'm only accounting for the costs of rejected prints when the printer operation is to blame.  One can multiply any point on the graph by a personal yield factor to end up with your own actual final cost per print.  My personal print quality yield is over 95%.  So far so good with the P600. It has been pretty reliable so far, but the ink dribble I mentioned on one recent print may be a sign that some DIY printer maintenance will have to occur in the not too distant future.

Lastly, with the P600 PK/MK ink switching conundrum, one can waste lots more ink than the Epson specs account for if one is not careful. The printer will not allow the switch if any cartridge is low (not critically low, just low with the ink level indicator registering about 5% remaining). One cartridge almost always seems to be low on this printer, so the end user will have a tough time switching without wasting more ink than the specification says unless you are willing to remove the low cartridge(s), add new ones, switch, then remove new cartridge(s) and replace with old ones until fully consumed. That approach doesn't seem particularly practical to me, but I'm about to find out :(  My wasted ink will get accounted for in the study, but others may waste more or less than me depending on how often they wish to switch and how much hastle they are willing to put up with when setting aside and then reinstalling ink cartridges. I also worry somewhat that reinstalling the older cartridges may invite clogging issues, but I don't really know. I will be discussing the ink swap issue at length in the next update of the cited article.

I hope to post more updated information on this project in the next couple of weeks, so check back if you are interested in this approach to home printing costs.

best,
Mark
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com
« Last Edit: December 29, 2015, 09:54:10 pm by MHMG »
Logged

GrahamBy

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1813
    • Some of my photos
Re: What does it really cost to make a print at home?
« Reply #4 on: December 30, 2015, 05:37:33 am »

Of course what is not included in this is that if you print at home, you will print more, just for the joy of seeing the prints :-)

Which for those of us not actually making money from photography, is pretty much the point of the exercise :-)
Logged

Jager

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 207
    • E vestigio
Re: What does it really cost to make a print at home?
« Reply #5 on: December 30, 2015, 07:06:16 am »

Of course what is not included in this is that if you print at home, you will print more, just for the joy of seeing the prints :-)

Which for those of us not actually making money from photography, is pretty much the point of the exercise :-)

This.  Plus the reality that non-printmaking-photographers must accept "good enough" from a lab; or else leave an image un-printed.

To me, the ability to print at will - iteratively, if necessary, in order to achieve the ultimate best I and my image are capable of - is priceless.

MHMG

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1285
Re: What does it really cost to make a print at home?
« Reply #6 on: December 30, 2015, 08:40:23 am »

This.  Plus the reality that non-printmaking-photographers must accept "good enough" from a lab; or else leave an image un-printed.

To me, the ability to print at will - iteratively, if necessary, in order to achieve the ultimate best I and my image are capable of - is priceless.

Agreed. I've made almost all of my own prints for over forty years. I have always believed that creating my own finished work was a very personal and important part of my photography.

Also not included in my print cost evaluation is all the supporting costs of computers, monitors, scanners, cameras, albums, framing materials, flat file cabinets, dedicated space in one's home, etc., but on a total amortized basis for serious photography as a hobby, those other supporting expenses are pretty much also needed whether you use an outside lab or DIY.  Photography is indeed an expensive hobby, but come to think of it, I don't know of any cheap hobbies these days :)

best,
Mark
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com
Logged

Herbc

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 387
Re: What does it really cost to make a print at home?
« Reply #7 on: December 30, 2015, 10:11:28 am »

Amen about printing.  Having been in LF for decades, it never occurred to me that one would want to only have digital images floating around on a screen.
As to being an expensive hobby, ask a serious fisherman about his costs. 8)
Logged

Dan Vincent

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 40
    • Daniel Vincent Aviation Photography
Re: What does it really cost to make a print at home?
« Reply #8 on: December 30, 2015, 03:30:45 pm »

Talk about a small world, Mark, your studio is right down the street from where my sister used to live in Lee. I grew up in Pittsfield, so it's nice to see a kindred spirit.

Quote
Lastly, with the P600 PK/MK ink switching conundrum, one can waste lots more ink than the Epson specs account for if one is not careful. The printer will not allow the switch if any cartridge is low (not critically low, just low with the ink level indicator registering about 5% remaining). One cartridge almost always seems to be low on this printer, so the end user will have a tough time switching without wasting more ink than the specification says unless you are willing to remove the low cartridge(s), add new ones, switch, then remove new cartridge(s) and replace with old ones until fully consumed. That approach doesn't seem particularly practical to me, but I'm about to find out :(  My wasted ink will get accounted for in the study, but others may waste more or less than me depending on how often they wish to switch and how much hastle they are willing to put up with when setting aside and then reinstalling ink cartridges. I also worry somewhat that reinstalling the older cartridges may invite clogging issues, but I don't really know. I will be discussing the ink swap issue at length in the next update of the cited article.

I'm sure the P-series printers also do this, but the 3880 does a MK/PK switch every six months, regardless of whether or not you want to. So even if you never use MK ink, it will consume ink as it switches from MK and back.

I've been trying to keep track of my materials usage since procuring a 3880 a few years ago, and I've found that the Red River numbers are pretty good for average coverage prints. My prints don't always fall within that boundary, but I'd say it's a reasonable shorthand for the cost of ink only to give someone the idea of ink costs. Ink is a constant, while paper is a variable, as we're not making every single print on fine art paper. Mark's graph is excellent at showing this.

Desktop printers can have a tough calculus for users who aren't generating revenue. Even with generating revenue there is a certain floor where it still makes sense to get prints done in bulk. But this is an art, so money shouldn't be the primary factor in deciding what to do unless you are on the border of affordability. Indeed, there are no cheap hobbies these days!

adias

  • Guest
Re: What does it really cost to make a print at home?
« Reply #9 on: December 30, 2015, 04:30:04 pm »

These cost studies are interesting and useful, but I think they apply for high volume printing. By high volume I mean daily printing or at least several prints per week. I, and many others do not print for weeks. Printer idling adds to the cost because the non-clogging printers are running ink periodically, and the clogging printers... oh those need to go through de-clogging runs. In my experience that uses a lot of ink.
Logged

Jeff-Grant

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 568
    • http://www.jeff-grant.com
Re: What does it really cost to make a print at home?
« Reply #10 on: December 30, 2015, 05:55:30 pm »

I'm sure the P-series printers also do this, but the 3880 does a MK/PK switch every six months, regardless of whether or not you want to. So even if you never use MK ink, it will consume ink as it switches from MK and back.



Dan, I'm surprised to read this. It is something that I have never seen happen. I'm not doubting you for a minute but I'm surprised that I have not noticed it happen. Other than exercising the ink selector, I can't see what the swap would achieve.
Logged
Cheers,
 Jeff  www.jeff-grant.com

alain

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 465
Re: What does it really cost to make a print at home?
« Reply #11 on: December 30, 2015, 06:00:53 pm »

These cost studies are interesting and useful, but I think they apply for high volume printing. By high volume I mean daily printing or at least several prints per week. I, and many others do not print for weeks. Printer idling adds to the cost because the non-clogging printers are running ink periodically, and the clogging printers... oh those need to go through de-clogging runs. In my experience that uses a lot of ink.

Calculating print cost for really low volume printing  is not easy, maybe not possible.  As long you're volume is lower (or close to) the "minimum volume" for the printer, it can be cheaper to print than not to print.  Printing a few small prints, on a cheaper rc-paper,  every week that you're not doing "fine-art" work, will be better than not printing.  I also found that those prints can be good gifts.

Things change when somebody ask you a favour for doing 10 A2 fine art prints for a small "exhibition", then you have to have an idea what you're cost for those prints is.  At least when it's a favour.  For a business labor cost will take a large portion of the cost and the "exact" calculation for inkt will be far less important.

A very uncertain question is how long the printer itself will live and how much prints it will deliver.

BTW. My now retired 3800 had between 20 and 30% of it's used ink unaccounted for (aka wastebin) and I printed weekly, at least a 11" by 16.5" or more.
Logged

alain

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 465
Re: What does it really cost to make a print at home?
« Reply #12 on: December 30, 2015, 06:04:17 pm »

I'm sure the P-series printers also do this, but the 3880 does a MK/PK switch every six months, regardless of whether or not you want to. So even if you never use MK ink, it will consume ink as it switches from MK and back.



Dan, I'm surprised to read this. It is something that I have never seen happen. I'm not doubting you for a minute but I'm surprised that I have not noticed it happen. Other than exercising the ink selector, I can't see what the swap would achieve.

I've seen it to on a 3800 and after some (5?) years it started to dump more MK, until the original cartridge was empty and replaced. 
Logged

Dan Vincent

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 40
    • Daniel Vincent Aviation Photography
Re: What does it really cost to make a print at home?
« Reply #13 on: December 30, 2015, 06:36:30 pm »

Dan, I'm surprised to read this. It is something that I have never seen happen. I'm not doubting you for a minute but I'm surprised that I have not noticed it happen. Other than exercising the ink selector, I can't see what the swap would achieve.

You'll only notice it as the printer taking a far longer time to start up and ready than usual. I never print with MK on my 3880 (other printers do MK work) and it's already consumed a third of the MK cart over two years. My understanding is that it does this to make sure there's at least some fresh/non-stagnant MK ink in the MK line and that you can change over in the future, if you decide to.

I don't know if doing a manual MK/PK change resets the timer on this, but I do know that the printer will do it on a six month schedule if you don't do manual switches.

Rand47

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1882
Re: What does it really cost to make a print at home?
« Reply #14 on: December 30, 2015, 07:35:02 pm »

Quote
Other than exercising the ink selector, I can't see what the swap would achieve.

I'm not sure if my R3000 did this swapping exercise automatically... but I can tell you this - after printing PK exclusively for about 7 months, I switched over to MK for a few days to make a client some prints.  Worked fine.  Switched back to PK and it killed the printer dead.  Stone dead, not fixable by Epson service provider dead.  Doorstop dead.  Paperweight dead. 

The printer was just out of warranty, of course.  Ended up as e-waste.  The service center didn't even want it for free for parts.   This was a fairly lightly used printer, in pristine condition otherwise.

So, perhaps an auto swap is designed to prevent this?

Rand
Logged
Rand Scott Adams

Jeff-Grant

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 568
    • http://www.jeff-grant.com
Re: What does it really cost to make a print at home?
« Reply #15 on: December 30, 2015, 07:59:17 pm »

It's interesting that the swap happens. I know from recent experience with Piezography inks that an ink swap doesn't move enough ink to overcome sedimentation. It can only be to exercise the ink swap mechanism.
Logged
Cheers,
 Jeff  www.jeff-grant.com

Mark D Segal

  • Contributor
  • Sr. Member
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 12512
    • http://www.markdsegal.com
Re: What does it really cost to make a print at home?
« Reply #16 on: December 30, 2015, 08:11:06 pm »

It's interesting that the swap happens. I know from recent experience with Piezography inks that an ink swap doesn't move enough ink to overcome sedimentation. It can only be to exercise the ink swap mechanism.

Yes, from what I have seen first hand with internals of my 4900, the ink swap happens within the damper using a switch that moves out a really small amount of the one ink and replaces it with the other - almost like how a trolley track can be switched to move the vehicle in one direction or the other. The swap happens when the user switches between matte and gloss papers and according to the technician I have discussed this with, the procedure and the printer are unaffected by how long the one ink or the other may have been dormant, but gently rotating a cartridge that has gone unused for a long while is a good idea.
Logged
Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
Author: "Scanning Workflows with SilverFast 8....."

MHMG

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1285
Re: What does it really cost to make a print at home?
« Reply #17 on: December 30, 2015, 08:21:48 pm »

Talk about a small world, Mark, your studio is right down the street from where my sister used to live in Lee. I grew up in Pittsfield, so it's nice to see a kindred spirit.

If you ever get back to home town, please give me a call and let's get together.

I'm sure the P-series printers also do this, but the 3880 does a MK/PK switch every six months, regardless of whether or not you want to. So even if you never use MK ink, it will consume ink as it switches from MK and back.


My P600 has now been in operation since April 2015, and I pay close attention to its print cycles in order to identify an autoclean cycles. I have not yet noticed an auto ink switch. I did deliberately switch just once from PK to MK and then soon back to PK in order to print a few light fade test samples early on in May, 2015,  so the printer has now been in PK ink mode for several months. MK is still registering full. Hence, if the P600 is programmed to do an automatic ink swap occasionally, it's a very low frequency indeed, and not cause for much concern since it doesn't affect the economics of ownership in any significant way. User requested deliberate ink swap decisions are another matter, and cause for concern for anyone who likes to print regularly on both matte and glossy media.  In that situation, one would be best served by purchasing the SC P400 instead of the P600 or, sad to say, buying two P600 units in order to dedicate one to Matte papers and one to gloss/luster papers.

cheers,
Mark
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com
Logged

Mark D Segal

  • Contributor
  • Sr. Member
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 12512
    • http://www.markdsegal.com
Re: What does it really cost to make a print at home?
« Reply #18 on: December 30, 2015, 08:34:24 pm »

If you ever get back to home town, please give me a call and let's get together.

My P600 has now been in operation since April 2015, and I pay close attention to its print cycles in order to identify an autoclean cycles. I have not yet noticed an auto ink switch. I did deliberately switch just once from PK to MK and then soon back to PK in order to print a few light fade test samples early on in May, 2015,  so the printer has now been in PK ink mode for several months. MK is still registering full. Hence, if the P600 is programmed to do an automatic ink swap occasionally, it's a very low frequency indeed, and not cause for much concern since it doesn't affect the economics of ownership in any significant way. User requested deliberate ink swap decisions are another matter, and cause for concern for anyone who likes to print regularly on both matte and glossy media.  In that situation, one would be best served by purchasing the SC P400 instead of the P600 or, sad to say, buying two P600 units in order to dedicate one to Matte papers and one to gloss/luster papers.

cheers,
Mark
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com

The round-trip on an ink switch is generally said to be less than 4 ml. You would need to do one hell of a lot of ink switching to make it worthwhile tying up money in a second printer for this purpose alone.
Logged
Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
Author: "Scanning Workflows with SilverFast 8....."

MHMG

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1285
Re: What does it really cost to make a print at home?
« Reply #19 on: December 30, 2015, 09:43:20 pm »

The round-trip on an ink switch is generally said to be less than 4 ml. You would need to do one hell of a lot of ink switching to make it worthwhile tying up money in a second printer for this purpose alone.

Well, I had four cartridges registering about 5% left when the P600 refused to make the swap due to "low ink cartrdridge" Only one low cartridge of any color is required for the P600 to refuse the PK/MK ink swap.  I decided to keep printing with PK ink and not make the swap to MK when I wanted to.  I have now made well over 30 8x10 equivalent sized prints, and I still have one of those original low cartridges still not fully out of ink and in need of imminent replacement. So, I still can't make a cost-effective PK/MK ink swap which would use Epson's specified 3 ml wastage scenario since I'd also be discarding unused ink in the low cartridge(s). And now, another cartridge is registering in the 5% low territory, so it too will cause the printer to balk at the desired switch condition.  Had I elected to discard those cartridges in order to complete my desire to switch from PK to MK at that time, my best guess at this point is I would have thrown away somewhere between $10 and $15 dollars worth of ink in the low ink cartridges in addition to the 3 ml of ink the printer would then consume from the new cartridges according to Epson's specs.  That tells me that ink switching in the P600 between matt and glossy papers is going to be a deal breaker for folks wanting to regularly print on both types of papers.  One will have to either schedule black ink changes very infrequently on the P600, or be prepared to wait until a relatively narrow window of opportunity occurs when no ink cartridges are getting low, or be prepared to do annoying and possibly clog inducing ink replace-new-swap-replace old-swap-replace new again procedures, or accept well over 3 ml of wasted ink per switch, or buy that second printer to circumvent the issue entirely. Not an easy calculation by any means :(.

This is a problem... just saying, but Canon printers in this desktop printer category aren't necessarily ideal either. The Canon Pro-1, for example, can make the ink swap seamlessly, but it has such very restrictive fine art media margin settings that in all honesty, makes the Pro-1 only truly a good printer for folks who print primarily on luster/glossy media only. There seems to be no free lunch in the 13 inch carriage width printer category at the moment. All of these 13 inch carriage width printers have serious software/hardware flaws. The newest offerings from Epson and Canon in the  17 inch printer class suffer from similar fates I would expect, but I don't own them, so I can't say for sure.

cheers,
Mark
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com
« Last Edit: December 30, 2015, 10:12:14 pm by MHMG »
Logged
Pages: [1] 2   Go Up