On-Site Printing for Events

JohnBiggs

I need to do it cheap. I don't expect more than 50 people but who knows. As I build the business I'll add more.

I was thinking Dye-Sub printer however there seems to be a chasim in prices or I'm doing something wrong.

There are $100-$200 consumer 4x6 dye subs, then there are $1500-3000 dye subs.

I can't find anything in between...? I'd prefer to spend $500, but I'm kidding myself I guess.

I have spare computers/monitors for viewing stations. Any software recomendations or work flows?

Thanks All.

Cygnus Studios

The Epson R1900 is a great choice for onsite work. It runs around $550

Prints 4x6 up to 13x19

The color is really good for the price range, although not exactly easy on ink.

fredjclaus

I have used the Kodak Printer Dock for heavy printing now for 2 years. Some days I print 30 images and some days I print 300 images. I only do this type of work on weekends so it's not like I'm printing every day, but it's held up for me now for 2 years.

I asked this question on a different board and found others talking about the Canon printer for about 250, but again, just like the Kodak, it's a "Consumer" printer and not advised for heavy commercial printing.

In addition to these two, I've been recommended the Sony Dye-sub, but as you said it's about 1299.00 for the lower end one. You really are kidding yourself if you are looking for a dye-sub around 500 or so. I hear there are a lot of great ink jet printers around that price, but no dye-sub printers.

If you want to take a look at ink jet, I'd suggest Epson personally. I've never used them, but a lot of pros I talk to use Epson printers.

JohnBiggs

Thanks all. I have the epson 1800 and an epson portable 4x6.

I can find dye subs for $80 if I want. I just don't see why there isn't something a little more prosumer.

I may sell 'packages' on-site, use the 4x6 printer to give them something right then and have the package printed through smugmug and deliver later.

ADMIT Photography

I would just sell packages and have them pay up front. Then order through smugmug or another print company and have the photos sent directly to the customer or to you so you can deliver them. Then take the money from the packages and buy the printer that you want/need for future events.

rwells

I've printed lots of pictures onsite at events. For about 3 years I used Olympus P440 DyeSub printers. These are great, and you might can find one on ebay for $200.00 or so. I still have three of them. 8x10's will cost you about $1.85 ea. to print. They look great & come out dry with a protective coating applied in the process. You can get either glossy or satin ribbons. Ribbons and paper are readily available.

Now, having said all that; Due to the dusty dirty conditions of rodeo's and bull riding events, I swapped over to using Epson injet printers. I can't even remember which model. I was buying them from Sams Club for $79.00, and they came loaded with full ink cartridges. Replacement cartridges cost $115.00.

It was a no-brainer; so, I just bought a couple of these. When the ink ran out or dirt was causing printing issues, I would just pull the remaining ink cartridges out and throw that printer away. Just rotated in the new printers as needed. No worries...

Best of both worlds

---

Hope Al Gore doesn't hear about this

JohnBiggs

rwells wrote:

I've printed lots of pictures onsite at events.......

Thank you for your insight and business experiences.

Right now Best Buy carries a Canon photo printer for $49. I could buy 3 or 4 and go. I wouldn't throw them out though. I'll try selling them on Craigslist for $10.

rwells

JohnBiggs wrote:

Thank you for your insight and business experiences.

Right now Best Buy carries a Canon photo printer for $49. I could buy 3 or 4 and go. I wouldn't throw them out though. I'll try selling them on Craigslist for $10.

Ha, that sounds good. And Al Gore won't be hunting you down for filling up all to the landfills

Note: Do these printers come with "full" ink cartridges, or partials? That makes a significant financial difference in the long run.

Hope you make lots of money

Ann McRae

I am doing just that this weekend, and then all of the week after. I bought an ink jet printer, based on Randy's advice (Thank you Randy). Everything that I have read about printing is the new ink jets produce great results, and my test prints with this printer do bear that out.

My hope is to sell some at the event but really push people to buy packages at the event for later delivery. I have lots of gorgeous samples printed on metallic paper and will use that as the hook as it were!

Have you sorted out your viewing stations and other work flow yet? Feel free to ask, as this is all really fresh for me and I can let you know what we have planned.


ann

ARKreations

Ann McRae wrote:

Have you sorted out your viewing stations and other work flow yet? Feel free to ask, as this is all really fresh for me and I can let you know what we have planned.

ann

Ann, I'm definitely interested in the details. I PM'd you a couple weeks ago inquiring about that and never heard back...
(BTW - My event is next weekend.)

Ann McRae

ARKreations wrote:

Ann, I'm definitely interested in the details. I PM'd you a couple weeks ago inquiring about that and never heard back...
(BTW - My event is next weekend.)

Ooops, sorry, PM returned!

ann

JohnBiggs

Ann McRae wrote:

Ooops, sorry, PM returned!

ann

Ann, please share too. I am still working out my details but I would love to hear your plans for the viewing stations/work flow.

THANK YOU.

JohnBiggs

All, Right now I was going to try onefshop.com Ultimate View as a viewing station. I haven't had time to eval the software though.

I'm really curious what Ann is doing.

Ann McRae

ann is keeping it simple!

3 used Windows XP laptops, plus a more powerful used XP laptop as primary.

LR on Primary, router to connect the laptops together.

As each CF card comes in, adjust the whole card as a batch in LR (including proper keywords such as time or shooter etc), and export the jpegs to a file. One file per card.

The viewing stations then can access the primary and each folder on it. That is all!

I have bought two printers, the HP C7280, which prints really nice photos but is also an all in one so if we run out of order forms etc, we can print as we go.

The other is the Canon iP4600, which prints with the same inks and technology as my i9000. I just bought it so will need to run test prints tonight.

What has me drooling right now is the new HP Touch Screen computer. Huge display, and it pretty much looks like a giant digital frame, except that it is a computer so lots of storage, ability to move through folders etc AND on screen touch crop box etc. I think that would have a great wow factor, and if I make some $ this weekend, I will have a hard time deciding between it and the 5dMkII!!!

fredjclaus

Ann,

How do you think the customers preceive the ink jet prints? I mainly want to use my portable printer for children's birthday parties, but there may be a day when I have a corporate event I need to do. Would the fact that the pictures are printed on an ink jet printer really matter?

What are some good ink jets to check out?

Ann McRae

fredjclaus wrote:

Ann,

How do you think the customers preceive the ink jet prints? I mainly want to use my portable printer for children's birthday parties, but there may be a day when I have a corporate event I need to do. Would the fact that the pictures are printed on an ink jet printer really matter?

What are some good ink jets to check out?

Hi Fred

I guess I don't yet know the answer to that.

The prints from both printers are really nice. They dry really quickly and they don't look like 'inkjet' as I remember.

However, I do want to be able to sell but print later, and so am making offers like metallic paper pretty attractive.

My big concern is that the inkjet prints are not waterproof. Of course, you spill on a lab print and you ruin it too!

I dunno. Will keep you posted after Sunday!

ann

fredjclaus

Thanks Ann,

I was looking at the Kodak ESP 9 printer as well. That is an All in one printer like your HP. I was a bit confused about the ad slick though. It looked like they were saying those prints were waterproof. They were not ink jet or dye sub, they were something called "pigment ink".

Ann McRae

fredjclaus wrote:

Thanks Ann,

I was looking at the Kodak ESP 9 printer as well. That is an All in one printer like your HP. I was a bit confused about the ad slick though. It looked like they were saying those prints were waterproof. They were not ink jet or dye sub, they were something called "pigment ink".

I can't find the review I read that compared inkjet with dye sub, but it was persuasive that inkjet have hit their stride. Here is an interesting review, too:

http://www.pcphotomag.com/hardware/printers/toolbox-10-awesome-photo-printers.html

ann

JohnBiggs

fredjclaus wrote:

Thanks Ann,

I was looking at the Kodak ESP 9 printer as well. That is an All in one printer like your HP. I was a bit confused about the ad slick though. It looked like they were saying those prints were waterproof. They were not ink jet or dye sub, they were something called "pgment ink".

Thats just an inkjet.

Here is my recomended photo printer if you just need great looking photos. It rivals dye-sub as far as image quality.

http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/consumer/consDetail.jsp?BV_UseBVCookie=yes&oid=63069504

ImagesByDeMeglio

What I did
Hi all,

For my very first event shooting of an Autocross, I set up one laptop with an external monitor. I ran LightRoom 2.0 and had Canon's portable Selphy CP770 Die Sub Printer connected. After I would fill up a card I would hand it off to my friend who was staying in our booth. I had a metadata preset for the event that was added to the imported photos and then he would sort through the photos and add keywords to the photos. The keywords in this case were the car numbers used for the race.

When racers came up to see if we had photos, we could easily use the car number in a keyword filter search and then the racers could look through their photos without searching through 100's of other cars and therefor possibly lose interest. When they found the picture they wanted, they could order downloads (to be emailed) or a 4x6 print on the spot.

I was pretty happy with the prints as the software automatically color corrected and I did not get complaints (always a good thing). The Selphy is sensitive to dust but a change in the cartride pretty much fixed that. Also, I could easily pick up 108 additional prints w/ cartridges for $30 at the local Walmart. The other cool factor is that everything fits in a handy little carrying bucket and if I wanted to, I can purchase an external battery that's good for 36 prints.

In the end, I was happy with the printer, we weren't too happy with the workflow (it's hard to keep up with keywording once you get a lot of customers standing around) and I need to figure out something that will work better.

That's my 2 cents

ARKreations

So Ann, how did things go?
I'm frantically trying to get ready for this weekend and would savor any experienced words of wisdom.

fredjclaus

JohnBiggs wrote:

Thats just an inkjet.

Here is my recomended photo printer if you just need great looking photos. It rivals dye-sub as far as image quality.

http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/consumer/consDetail.jsp?BV_UseBVCookie=yes&oid=63069504

Am I reading the web correctly? This printer according to your link is 99.00. The ink on a couple websites is $7.00 for black and $7.00 per each of the 3 color cartridges. Is that right?

So replacements would be $7.00 for black and $20.97 for all 3 colors. That's a bit more than the Kodak, but still FAR less than the Lexmark all in one unit I currently use.

ImagesByDeMeglio

fredjclaus wrote:

Am I reading the web correctly? This printer according to your link is 99.00. The ink on a couple websites is $7.00 for black and $7.00 per each of the 3 color cartridges. Is that right?

So replacements would be $7.00 for black and $20.97 for all 3 colors. That's a bit more than the Kodak, but still FAR less than the Lexmark all in one unit I currently use.

I can't remember the price but I have the same printer and you can get the entire ink set at Costco.

Anthony

Ann McRae

ARKreations wrote:

So Ann, how did things go?
I'm frantically trying to get ready for this weekend and would savor any experienced words of wisdom.

Okay, well, if there is one thing for me to pass along right now, be absolutely certain in your hardware/IT set up, and have more help on hand than you expect to need! And, break the bank on your processing station! That was our bottle neck - getting images displayed quickly enough.

More later, but I am swamped and still really evaluating how to do things better!

ann

ARKreations

Ann McRae wrote:

Okay, well, if there is one thing for me to pass along right now, be absolutely certain in your hardware/IT set up, and have more help on hand than you expect to need! And, break the bank on your processing station! That was our bottle neck - getting images displayed quickly enough.

More later, but I am swamped and still really evaluating how to do things better!

ann

You've just summed every one of my greatest fears and concerns - now I'm really worried.:uhoh

JohnBiggs

I did my event too and the precessing station was also my bottle neck. It just was not fast enough for the day. I ended up just finding pictures in file manager for people and showing them full screen. The onefshop software was working but it has it's flaws too.

I think I can improve the process without that software and have guests complete a paper form for their order. It's much easier than relying on too much technology.

I'd agree that I would have been better off with another assistant.

ARKreations

The big event is behind me and I'm happy to say I survived, but not without more than a fair share of battle scars. If there's one lesson to take from this is that the unexpected is always the first thing to happen.

We got to the venue and found the absolute WORST possible lighting that you can imagine on this stage. Black backdrop, bright yellow spot in the center of the stage, a couple of whites on either side and red spots on the sides - all separated by black holes. (We had to shoot everything at f/2.8, ISO 2000-2500, 1/500. Even then the dancers on stage often had color bands from the lighting.)

Starting to set up the booth, the drive on my print server crashed and the system was DOA. Fortunately, I was able to convert one of my 2 viewing stations. I had bought 2 Epson Dash 260 printers for 4x6 printing. After changing to the first new cartridge, we started having paper feed problems. (No problem, I have a backup! - By the end of the day, it was leaving a white streak on one corner.) That night, I ran each one through about 4 head cleaning cycles and they both ran flawlessly all day on Sunday.

But the biggest nightmare was (yes, you all said it before) processing. We shot over 2000 pics on Sat. and I was only able to process about 2/3 of them on site. My laptop was just not up to the task of pumping that many photos through lightroom at the necessary rate. So I moved everything over to my desktop and finished the processing on Saturday night. After about 2 hr. sleep, the desktop and I handled the volume almost real time on Sunday and I actually got to see my daughter dance.

Then Mon. was spent uploading everything to my web site and filling the orders from the event. I have to say that this was the longest, hardest, 4 days I've spent in quite a while. But in the end, we received glowing feedback from the participants and customers were beating the door down waiting for the on-line pictures to be available. We also received an open invite to do the event again next year!

BeachsidePaul

Well Ark, it sounds to me like you did GREAT. Especially the invite back for next year. As usual, we strive for perfection but our audience is often more forgiving of our sins the we are. Congrats on your success and think how much easier it will be next time with this under your belt. Paul

ARKreations

Thanks - I do consider the event a success. And as you correctly pointed out, I am my own harshest critic. What really made the effort worthwhile was that the director's invitation to return was actually an open invite to any of their competitions around the country. Unfortunately, the time and travel expenses would make the effort un-profitable. But I'll certainly be back next year.

bob swanson

Hi Ark
It would be interesting (unless I missed it before) to know the details of what you offered. Prices, packages, etc. I say this because I do events like these but don't offer onsite printing or even internet posting and find my profit margin very good without all of the other offers. I have gotten a little pressure from clients over the years to offer onsite and those that chose other photographers seem to always come back.

ARKreations

bob swanson wrote:

Hi Ark
It would be interesting (unless I missed it before) to know the details of what you offered. Prices, packages, etc. I say this because I do events like these but don't offer onsite printing or even internet posting and find my profit margin very good without all of the other offers. I have gotten a little pressure from clients over the years to offer onsite and those that chose other photographers seem to always come back.

The only thing I printed on site were 4x6 - $5 ea. I also took pre-paid orders for other enlargements. $5 - 4x6, $10 - 5x7, $15 - 8x10. On-line prices are $6, $12, $18 respectively. The on-site prints were very popular at the event.