Printing digital photos at home can be A) fun; B) frustrating; C) expensive; D) inexpensive; or E) all of the above.
The correct answer depends on whom you talk to. Retailers such as Eckerd Drug say it's frustrating and expensive for consumers to make their own prints (so you should pay them to handle your printmaking).
Printer companies such as Canon and Hewlett-Packard say it's fun and relatively inexpensive to go the homemade route (and use lots of their inks and paper).
The winner in this battle will be consumers. Prices for prints, retail or at home, are falling. And inkjet printers are less expensive and continue to improve in quality.
At stake is an almost untouched and lucrative market. Only about 20 percent of digital photos taken ever get printed, according to the Photo Marketing Association, and the vast majority of those are done at home.
That has retailers scrambling to offer digital services to make up for the decline in their film processing business.
Last year, about 80 percent of the prints made were from film; that's predicted to drop to 65 percent by 2006, according to IDC, a technology research company. But convenience is key.
One of the reasons is the changing demographics of the digital photo market. Two years ago, 70 percent of those using digital cameras were men; now its 50-50 between men and women.
"If you look at the efforts of HP and Kodak, it's all aimed at the soccer mom who may not be a hobbyist wanting to use Photoshop" software for elaborate photo effects, said Chris Chute, an analyst with IDC.
More and more, kiosks are showing up in stores so consumers can bring in the storage cards from their cameras and easily make their own prints. More retailers are offering the same one-hour service for digital as they have for film.
Competition has driven the price of prints to about 39 cents each at many retailers and as little as 19 to 20 cents for a 4-by-6 print at warehouse clubs.
By contrast, Mona Furlott, vice president of photo operations for Eckerd, estimates it costs 59 cents to make a 4-by-6 print at home. Printer manufacturers say prints cost 40 to 60 cents each at home.
A third alternative is online photo services that permit users to send digital photos over the Internet and receive finished prints by mail. These services, such as Ofoto (www.ofoto.com) and Shutterfly (www.shutterfly.com) charge about 49 cents a print, but there are also shipping fees.
Printer companies have their own weapons in the battle for photo supremacy. Inkjet printers that produce quality prints can be purchased for $100 or less. Some companies have models that handle the camera's storage disks to make prints directly without going through a computer, and others have docking stations that do the same.
In its issue due out in June, PC World magazine tested online services, retailers and inkjet printers on print quality.
"They were all closer than you would expect," said Alan Stafford, senior editor at PC World. "What I draw from that is a lot of people will be very, very happy with the quality from a photo inkjet."
But retailers are aggressively going after digital photographers.
"It's not easy, it's not cheap and it takes a lot of time" to print at home, Eckerd's Furlott said.
Printer companies have been working to improve the "archival" quality of their printers, or how many years their prints will last before fading. Consumer Reports magazine tested inkjet prints for fading in its May issue. Its conclusion: The magazine found that homemade prints were better on more expensive paper, and it recommended that people use the same brand of paper as their printer. That could add to the costs of home printing.
So who's right in the war between the drugstores and the printermakers?
"It all goes back to the kind of user," IDC's Chute said. "If you are typical digital camera user, chances are you not only have the computer at home and the printer and the Internet access, you probably also have the know-how to get the most out of your printer."
