These costs (and maintenance) can easily surmount the costs of outsourcing printing and many don't take that into account. Unless you sell and print a lot of your photos, the costs of expendables can easily overtake your profit if you do not figure your operating costs correctly and price your product at a high enough margin. (This is what Alan was getting at a couple of pages ago). In that case it is just not feasible to own one of these machines, despite the understandable desire to DIY...
One of these important variables is that Epson repeatedly stresses in many places in the user manual, the need to be using fresh ink not over 6 months old once opened!
David,
I agree. There's a lot more expense in printing than just buying a wide format printer. Buying one starts a chain reaction of expenditures that overshadows the cost of the printer itself. Justifying it as a photographer depends on volume and that in turn depends on sales, which in turn requires some marketing and a host of other expenses like matting equipment and related supplies, display equipment, and inventory. Overall it’s not really something one can just dabble in unless you’re willing to “eat” a substantial and continuing investment. There’s also the fact that all this stuff takes up a large amount of space that needs decent lighting, and may need things like humidity control. Another issue is that these printers need to be kept “alive”, so you can’t just let them sit all summer while you’re busy with other things. You need to be making prints on a somewhat regular basis for as long as you own the thing. Over the years that’s a lot of prints.
I think many get into this without quite realizing all of the ramifications, mostly because it’s extremely difficult to find a high quality personalized printing service. I’m talking about one where you can develop a working relationship with the person who does the printing in order to get exactly what you want. I know there’s a demand for that. I even tried doing it briefly, but found I didn’t have enough time available to do it justice.
The only outside work we take now involves digital restoration and reproduction of photographs, usually antique, from two local gallery and framing businesses. The owners of these have become friends over the course of long standing business relationships. This started as a favor to one of them when they came to us with a customer who was “in a bind”. They asked if we could help them out, we gave it a try, and things went from there. We only take problem jobs, usually involving fragile and damaged pieces. Often the client has been unable to find someone willing to do the job, or they had the job done but were unsatisfied with the results. We recommend other resources to clients who want straight forward reproduction of photographs. Deliberately being a last resort means that, within reason, schedule is not an issue. That allows me to have a life and do my own work without always being under the gun. My wife and I both do the digital restoration work and I do the printing. That helps keep the ink flowing without being overwhelming. These clients are without exception overjoyed with their new “old prints”, and our friends get the framing business from these jobs, so there’s quite a bit of satisfaction involved.
Outdated ink: I once had a rather long telephone conversation with an Epson service person who said he had been with Epson for over 20 years. He was able to answer any questions I had with no hesitation at all, and one of them was about using 6-month old ink. I was concerned I'd have to throw ink away when it became too old. He said if it was his printer he certainly wouldn't, because he had never seen a single problem in a wide format printer that was related to using old ink, even if it was years too old. I hesitate to write this in case it's bad information. It certainly goes against what's in the manual, but it is definitely what I was told. I have had some ink colors (orange, and green for instance) in the printer for well over a year and never experienced a problem. In fact those colors never clog while others do! I remove the ink cartridges and gently agitate them every few months. I don't know if that's necessary, but with rumors of pigment settling it couldn't hurt. I've never experienced any noticeable color shifts.