Why Not Print at Home?
The most common method of printing images at home is to use an Ink Jet Printer. These machines are now very effective and capable of producing print quality almost as good as our photographic process.
Unfortunately, there are a few drawbacks with Ink Jet Printers that may not be quite as obvious as you may have thought.
Cost
The real cost of printing with Ink Jet machines is quite well disguised. Manufacturers sell their printers at low cost making the whole process seem inexpensive however they actually make their profits from the consumables (photo paper & inkjet cartridges) that you have to buy in order to use the printer.
If you have tried to print photographs at home then you will be well aware that you need to use photo quality paper to achieve good results. Many users try to reduce the cost of consumables by buying unbranded materials.
Unfortunately this is rather false economy as using such unbranded consumables inevitably results in quality and archival problems (see below).
Archival Quality
Ink Jet printers work by spraying tiny dots of quick drying ink onto the paper.
Manufacturers chemically ‘link’ their own branded paper with their own specialised inks to ensure that only this combination will produce reasonably long lasting quality prints.
The use of unbranded consumables often results in prints that change colour and fade after quite short periods of time.
Aspect Ratio
To successfully print at home you need to have a good understanding of aspect ratios and the ability to adjust your images in photo editing software to achieve the desired result.
Experience shows that the average user will waste about half of their consumable trying to ‘get it right’.
This is often repeated whenever a print process is attempted. Typical problems inculude ink running out half way through the print process, contamination from dust, clogged print heads caused by lack us regular use and computer errors and interruptions resulting in a waste of effort and money.
Time
Regardless of the above issues, many people still prefer to print occasional images at home. Even with successful printing the time invested is quite substantial, ranging from just a minute or so for small images to tens of minutes for larger sizes.
Most of our customers simply do not have the time or patience to sit at their computers selecting prints one by one, adjusting the aspect ratios or cropping & editing them before printing them one at a time.
We regularly print large numbers of images for our customers ranging from the 20 or 30 photos from the latest holiday to hundreds of images that may have been saved up before finding our service.
We have ensured that our service is as fast and effortless as possible whilst retaining the very best quality, longevity and value available.
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