TITLE: Photography printed by color laser printer

Do you know the price of color laser printers such as EPSON C900, HP 2550, Konica Minolta magicolor 2300 and so on? The low price of them will let us consider the possibility of photographic printing. If it works, the market of photographical printing will move from Home-DIY by inkject printing to SOHO.

The technical story of laser printing is complete difference with inkject printing. At first, thicker photo paper is necessary and it is critical connection with color saturation of printing quality. Beside thickness, heating and polarity compatible of toner are also needed to overcome. Different materials of laser printing photo paper will be introduced such as synthetic paper, recycle photo paper and textile. Of course, these materials have difference features such as the concept of environment protection, tear free by hand, resist wet, etc.

How to evaluate the cost per printing of laser color printer! For example, toner consumable of one color is based on 5% coverage is about four thousand A4 pages to print. If using 25 percent of each C/M/YK toner can fill one full A4 page to calculate, it is possible to print 800 pages by one complete set of C/M/Y/K toner cartridges. According to the selling price of toner cartridge from printer’ maker or recycle maker divided by 800 pages, the cost is around US$ 0.43~0.5. In Taiwan market, there is US$ 0.17 per printing based on 200 times of color printing per month for EPSON C4000. Of course, US$ 0.17 should include consumables (beside paper) and maintenance. Concerning the price of this EPSON C4000, the payment is less US$ 0.04 per month to rent and continue three years. 

Where is opportunity? The scenic spot, playing land, museum, stadium, memorial hall, cinema, hotel, plaza, mall and airport are excellent opportunity to run photography business for tourist, even, develop chain-like alliance shop. The business scope is not only printing photography also including disc burns record and photographic album. Regarding to the cost of hardware investment, beside image software edit package, the recommended configuration is as following to evaluate budget.

Basically, color laser printer has special features such as promptly printing, dry toner, loyal color (same as monitor display), high resolution (resolution determined by printer’s engine, not photo paper), treat large image file in short time. High quality laser printing plus low cost investment with fast service will create new market of photographic industry.

Norman Chen

DotPoint Technology Ltd.

Tel: +886 2 2782 9590

Fax: +886 2 2782 9810

E-mail: dot.point@msa.hinet.net

Web site: http://www.dotpoint.com.tw