As you know, most home colour printers use inkjet technology. Essentially, this sometimes messy screening process involves shooting tiny dots of ink at a piece of paper. There’s a superior approach to colour printing called dye sublimation. Basically, it involves using a heating element to heat dye impregnated in a ribbon to over 350 degrees, at which point it turns into a gas and migrates into the surface of the specially coated photo paper. Temperature controls how much dye transfers at any point on the paper. One critical aspect of this approach is that the dots on the page can be of variable sizes.
Until now, the cost of dye sub has been restricted to professional printers and photo developers. I read today, via Engadget, about the HiTi 730PS. It’s a dye sub printer for the home, capable of printing images up to 6 x 8 inches. The prints cost about 40 cents each, and the printer starts at US $368. I haven’t actually seen these printers in action, but apparently they offer a vastly superior print quality for a decent price. The printer also includes an LCD display, so that you don’t have to download your images to your computer before printing.
DarrenBarefoot.com 
Somehow I doubt the ink cost of 40¢ per print (and for what size is that? surely not the 8×6…). Don’t even get me started on the per-print costs for inkjets. It is interesting to see that colour laser printers are starting to enter the “reasonable” range (sub-$1000).
Future Shop, London Drugs et al are all around 40¢ for a 4×6. I’ve been really happy with the results.
I have my doubts about that price too.
You can get down to 25¢ per print online in Canada, and lower if you want to go in person to one of the giant big box stores. Those are true photographic prints. It always amazes me how people want to try to use a $200 home printer to compete with a $200,000 photographic developing system.
http://www.akerman.ca/digiphoto.html#Table
I’m no photo expert, but it’s my understanding that this dye sub process is essentially a home-version of what takes place down at your local Photomart. While this printer probably isn’t for everybody, I can think of a number of good reasons to buy one (assuming that it can approximate the quality of a photo lab):
* Photo labs are dreadfully unreliable. Sometimes my digital prints are too dark, or the colours seem off. At home, I can experiment until I’m satisfied with the print. I’m not going to undertake a serialized process of sending six different versions to the photo lab.
* I have to wait days for my prints from the photo lab, and if I don’t have them shipped to me (at additional cost), I have to go pick them up. The cost of doing so (in terms of my free time) should be factored into the cost.
* Like most innovations, the per-print price is likely to come down. It may come down to a point where it’s competitive with photo labs.
* My Dad owns a drugstore, and it’s got a photo lab in it. It’s quibbling, but his machine cost less than $100,000. Furthermore, I’m pretty sure that I know more about photography and developing than any of his staff. Who should I trust?
Convenience (having it at home, the experimentation factor) is always something that people will pay for. And of course, as machines like this improve and the costs go down, there will be more and more competition with the “lab” versions.
For great prints, I’ve always taken my photos/digital sources to good local shops. Someone mentioned one in North Van called “Foto-something”.
Richard — that table is a great tool, thanks!