Printing

Many years ago now, I invested in an A3 photo printer. It was a very expensive purchase but I was able to print real photo quality prints to A3 size and I thought this made it all worth while. At the time I purchased the printer, the inks were a reasonable cost and I worked out a cost per page that seemed doable. However over the years the cost of the inks have gotten more and more expensive to the point where I am now thinking about retiring the printer (or selling it) permanently. It is just costing too much to use and more and more I find I am going elsewhere to get my photos printed.

There are lots of different retailers now offering digital photo printing and the quality they are providing is for the most part very good. I have tried several of them, but  I personally like the print quality at Harvey Norman’s and with their VIP club membership the prices are very good. There is almost always a special on and 6x4 prints are as cheap as 12cents each. Our local Camera Club is lucky enough to receive a discount on prints at Norman Ross. Same quality as that which I enjoy at Harvey Norman’s and with the discount the prices are comparable to the VIP membership.  So I have choices!

So why would I bother to print my own any more? My printer has 8 ink cartridges, each costing on average around $35.00 each. Then there is the cost of the paper, which if you buy cheap you get a cheap looking print, so it really is an expensive exercise to DIY. My printer is still in great working order but that is not going to encourage me to use it any more, its days are numbered! All I really need is a cheap little printer to print documents from time to time that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg to fill with ink.