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No commercial ties to them, but if you're in the US, Costco does prints that are cheap, and (as a former digital pre-press nerd, I can attest to) reasonably acc

No commercial ties to them, but if you're in the US, Costco does prints that are cheap, and (as a former digital pre-press nerd, I can attest to) reasonably accurate color reproduction. The nice 7-color inkjet I've got under my desk has been unused for years and years. Good riddance to fiddling with that ink-sucking, nozzle-coughing, fiddly beast.

brudgers 7y ago
I tried the Costco route for exactly the reasons you mention. The technical qualities of the prints are better than what my inkjet produces. But in terms of what I am looking for, my inkjet produces prints I prefer because rapid feedback lets me iterate the image editing and my goals are orthogonal to prepress values. These days, most photographic tools are oriented toward prepress because there is real money in B2B. I don't really care that much about accurate color reproduction between the real world and the print. I care about predictable correlation between what's on my screen and the print. I'm not aghast that tungsten lights produce warm images (thogh sometimes fluorescent lights are a problem). Like you I forswore printers. Casual printing would often be a multi-hour or multi-day process because the printer demanded a new cartridge. And two days or two weeks later I would go to print and it would demand another. About a year and a half ago, I broke down and bought a Canon Pro 100. After the gift card it was $99 and came with 50 13x19 sheets. I print frequently enough that I don't get clogged nozzles. I generally print 4x6. The paper is cheap. It uses less ink. The prints don't take much space. A few months ago, I switched to third party ink. It might not be as good as the OEM. Refilling is more fiddly than disposable cartridges, but it's way more under my control: no trip to the camera store or waiting for UPS. There's a guy on Youtube. Costco printing made me see the value of printing. But in terms of what I do, it's like outsourcing to the lab back in the film days. The printer in my office is like having my own darkroom. But faster, cheaper, and easier. I can print iteratively at 10pm Sunday and into a Monday morning. I'm thinking about adding a dye-sublimation printer: Canon Selphy. No fiddly bits, portable, and can run off battery. Somewhat like a Polaroid in terms of producing quick prints in the field. It costs out to around $0.30/4x6 print. Cheaper than a B&W 120 negative.

brudgers 7y ago

I tried the Costco route for exactly the reasons you mention. The technical qualities of the prints are better than what my inkjet produces. But in terms of what I am looking for, my inkjet produces prints I prefer because rapid feedback lets me iterate the image editing and my goals are orthogonal to prepress values. These days, most photographic tools are oriented toward prepress because there is real money in B2B. I don't really care that much about accurate color reproduction between the real world and the print. I care about predictable correlation between what's on my screen and the print. I'm not aghast that tungsten lights produce warm images (thogh sometimes fluorescent lights are a problem). Like you I forswore printers. Casual printing would often be a multi-hour or multi-day process because the printer demanded a new cartridge. And two days or two weeks later I would go to print and it would demand another. About a year and a half ago, I broke down and bought a Canon Pro 100. After the gift card it was $99 and came with 50 13x19 sheets. I print frequently enough that I don't get clogged nozzles. I generally print 4x6. The paper is cheap. It uses less ink. The prints don't take much space. A few months ago, I switched to third party ink. It might not be as good as the OEM. Refilling is more fiddly than disposable cartridges, but it's way more under my control: no trip to the camera store or waiting for UPS. There's a guy on Youtube. Costco printing made me see the value of printing. But in terms of what I do, it's like outsourcing to the lab back in the film days. The printer in my office is like having my own darkroom. But faster, cheaper, and easier. I can print iteratively at 10pm Sunday and into a Monday morning. I'm thinking about adding a dye-sublimation printer: Canon Selphy. No fiddly bits, portable, and can run off battery. Somewhat like a Polaroid in terms of producing quick prints in the field. It costs out to around $0.30/4x6 print. Cheaper than a B&W 120 negative.