Print cost with Epson 2200

[cryowizard]

Greetings all!

I need to make a few landscape and nature prints for a friend of mine in London. She wants them in about 13"x19" size and larger for panoramas. I would be printing those at home using my Epson 2200 printer, roll paper and cutter. I want to charge her just the printing cost.

Now, there are few questions:

a) does anyone know what a pure printing cost is per square inch for Epson 2200 (luster paper)?

The full set of cartridges is 70$ and a roll of Luster paper 13"x32' is also $70, but how much (roughly, on average) can you print with one full set of ink cartridges?

b) just for my information, how does one determine a price (aside from the printing cost) of a print for a commercial sale? Do you charge fifty, a hundred or a thousand? I went to a John Shaw photography workshop in NYC a year ago, and he was selling some of his large prints for about a $100 (those were workshop prices of course). Ansel Adams' prints go for about $200 to $250. So how do you guys determine how much to charge?

Any advice quite appreciated!

Regards
DM

[Peter_AUS]

Here are my thoughts.

How much of a friend is this friend of yours and how many prints do they want.

If you aren't using up all the ink and paper, then see how much is left over.

I do things for friends and never charge them, I look on it as being what friends are for. What goes around, comes around. I'd be chuffed they wanted copies of my photography and were looking at displaying it, which I assume is your firends intention.

If from the displays you get some further orders, then I would certainly think about $25-$50 depending on the print and size and order.

It think the cost of postage is the real issue with sending to England, although not as bad as us in Australia sending to US or England.

My advice, do them for your friend, maybe get them to pay for postage and take it from there.

Are you really looking to recover the cost, certainly if you ended up spending $200US or maybe even $100US.

I'm just looking at if from a friends perspective.

Hope this helps.

[Sean Dempsey]

I estimate the cost of 13x19 inch prints off a 2200 to be about 8 bucks, that's paper and ink alone.

Never forget the rip charge. Add in costs for the printer itself, the computer, the software, your camera gear, the electricty... I usually say that a 13x19 is a 10 dollar cost.

You figure that a "set" of ink gets about 20 13x19 sheets. All the inkes go down at very different levels, but this is a gross average. And a box of 20 photo sheets is 35 bucks.

So you've got a retail cost of about 120-140 dollars for a full set of ink and a box of 20 sheets. Tack on the 60 dollar rip charge for intangibles, and you get about 10 bucks a sheet.

btw, I get all my materials from www.atlex.com

[ambojam]

Actually, I'm thinking of buying an Epson 2200. I've had the Epson 1280 and loved all three of them...But now I'm selling at a nice clip and want to ensure my customers that these prints will last a lifetime. How are the results with the 2200? I hear one can only use the epson papers, which are terrific papers, but it is nice to have lots of options. And how expensive is the ink anyway? I've heard about banding too. Have you found it a problem? Thanks, Andrea