Probably not a joke. Last time I figured the costs for home printing of digital
photos of 4X6 size, it was significantly more expensive than just taking a roll
of film to Costco or Wal-Mart. On the order of .50/print for digital vs. about
.04/print at Costco. Both the figures above assume starting with a film
negative image, and don't include calculations of the cost of film, developing
and the time/effort or transport involved. Using a from-the-start digital image
doesn't much improve the equation.
Many of the on-line purveyors of prints-from-digital charge more than the
typical traditional film developing shops as well.
Even printing larger size photos isn't in digital's favor, IMO. By the time one
calculates the time and effort involved in getting the photos edited and
corrected to print on a good quality inkjet, and the cost of expensive inkjet
"photo papers" and inks for quality prints, it's a considerably expensive
process.
Where prints from digital begin to make sense, as far as I can see, is where
one wants a large quantity of prints of a single photo. There the time spent in
prepping the work is well-spent, since the finished file can then be sent to a
good printer to be reproduced ad infinitum.
---
Scott Gomez
-----Original Message-----
From: bdcolen [mailto:bdcolen@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Subject: RE: [OM] A quick E-1 poll
Printing from digital is WHAT? More expensive than film? This is a joke, right?
And plenty of stock work is being done at 5mgp.
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