How about try a 'real' photo lab?
How much do you print (quantity wise)? What do you print (art prints or just 'regular' prints?)
for bulk 4x6 and fine but not great work I use winkflash.com. inexpensive and shipping is 99c. they don't pack the larger prints very well so i do only wedding proofs from them these days.
Mpix is good, but are a consumer lab. (not as inexpensive as a true pro lab).
try whcc.com, h&h color lab, burrell, profilmet.com, tpiphoto.com - some are small, some large, some cheap and some not - i use profilmet's non-color correction and an 8x10 is $1 and free shipping via UPS ($10 min order and $2 handling fee). TPI is small and not as cheap on teh smaller prints, but the 10x13 to 16x20 they are cheaper and they offer a tone of sports related things if you shoot team sports or the like. profilmet does lots of canvas, TPI does none.
as for inkjet printers - the higher end canon units are great, as are the HP units. Unless you use epsons every 2 to 3 days the ink drys up and you have to clean the nozzles - wasteful on ink and expensive not to mention a real PITA.
pigment ink lasts longer than dye inks, so keep that in mind if you go inkjet. the larger printers are a lot cheaper to run on ink as you get it in larger cartridges.
as to your original question...you can't afford what the pro labs run as printers. even their inkjet machines are $15,000 and most run Fuji mini-labs for the prints (up to 30x40 at profilmet). $400,000 units.
Message edited by author 2006-12-10 23:38:45.
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