Print Smartly – In one go!!

You are a keen photographer and click at every possible occasion and time. And what is more interesting is that you can print photos on your own PC at home. No uploading of the images on a memory card or a CD, no mix-ups with high-street or online developers. And with instants results too! Also, if the photograph is not so powerful, you can always change it into a new, tweaked version in minutes. VIOLA! But have you ever wondered about the cost involved in such a convenience?

The fact is that the 6X4 inch pictures printed at home are not really cheaper than the pictures you get printed from the high street. This has been proved by the recent research carried out taking into account the media costs and the quantity of ink that a printer wastes during self cleaning. Amazingly the price per picture at home increases drastically due to these factors. And not just the printer, costs of consumables like photo paper and the actual cost of the ink cartridges also adds up in the final figure.

To calculate the actual cost, just dividing the number of pages printed by the cost of cartridges used is not enough. The true cost of printing photos is much deeper than just running the cartridges until they are empty. In between printing runs, inkjet printers perform self-maintenance routine to prevent the print head from clogging with dried ink or dust, whether you are printing daily or weekly or monthly. And to clean itself, the printer uses what is available to it readily and that is - ink. The ink that is used during cleaning is lost. Furthermore, almost all inkjets use ink to prime the print head when a fresh cartridge is installed leading to more wastage of ink. Then there are other minor failings in some models of the printers that result in further loss of time and money.

While performing tests on printers, the difference between best case efficiency, (when the printer is continuously printing) and the real-world efficiency (when the printer is used intermittently) was determined. In the best-case efficiency, the printer was used to print 6X4in photos continuously till it runs out of ink. Alternatively, for real-world efficiency, intermittent testing over a period of three weeks was done with a ten day rest period towards the end of the test. Each day, six borderless 6X4in prints were printed on each printer, which is a fairly high usage rate. Again ink cartridges were weighed before and after the tests. The quantity of ink used up per page was worked out for both modes of printing. Surprisingly, in every case, printing in intermittent mode used up more ink per page.

To calculate the final efficiency figure, the cost while changing the ink cartridges   too needs to be added up, no matter how regularly you use your printer.

Then, there are other factors as printing speed, photo-paper quality, longevity of the photo prints, resistance against fading on exposure to air and light, etc. that will determine the viability of printing photos at home.

Considering all the above tests and factors we reach to the conclusion that you must 'print smartly'. Rather than print sporadically, save photos up to the end of the mouth when you have enough to drain cartridges at one go. This will save the self-cleaning wastages by the printer. And reduce the cost drastically. The final prints will be as good as you want and when it comes to photo-per-buck, you will be the winner.