Printers

Timecamera Home Business Compilations - "Print & Sell Your Own" Restored Historical Photographs, Vintage Panoramas and Antique Prints

ONE OF THE MOST FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS IS: What constitutes a suitable Printer to run this kind of business?

Fact is, technology has forged ahead in leaps and bounds in recent years and now, with the growing popularity of digital cameras forcing the pace, print quality is higher than ever to meet consumer demand for quality photos or prints that are practically indistinguishable from the real thing - even with bottom-end printers.

The answer therefore is that your existing standard-size home inkjet - or other photo-quality type of printer - is more than likely perfectly suitable. If not then adequate printers can readily be purchased for well under 150.00 from any computer store. The cost of a new printer if it becomes necessary is quickly recoverable - which is very handy as you may well find that if your business is promoted, one machine will quickly become very hard pressed to keep up with the steadily increasing demand, as we discovered during our test-marketing phase.

The Test Marketing...

Most enquirers automatically assume we used professional equipment during our test-marketing phase. That was not the case. Incidentally, retail sales are no longer promoted following completion of our test marketing in order to concentrate on the business package only sales. Initially we utilized a basic HP 5550 (a little over 100.00) due to its speed and output quality. Although it did not have panoramic capabilities apart from their own folded paper range, panoramas were initially marketed in 10x4 joinable sections (as per many of the archived originals kept in museums in fact).

Above: The HP 5550

Above: An Epson 925

As Demand Increased....

As demand began to grow it became necessary to add a further printer to keep up. The second printer was an Epson Stylus Photo 925, a versatile machine albeit a little slower, and this with its roll paper feature was quickly churning out single length panoramas* as well as standard photos. Again, this is a very low cost printer. A further HP 5550 was added later plus two more computers as sales continued to quickly expand.

Low Overheads

Since our test marketing, with the explosion in the digital camera business quality of printers has certainly increased much further and prices have been greatly lowered again since our own test phase so we are not in a position to recommend current model printers. This is a task more suited to a computer store, so we suggest you shop around and ask about your chosen printer's capabilities.

The key factors are versatility, quality, speed, photo quality and economy both in price and replacement ink cartridges. Panorama capability is also handy if you choose to market these but the huge variety of other print and photo types available means this is not essential. Although most ink cartridges may seem expensive initially the per-print overhead is relatively low and easily built into your costing.

Non-Branded

On the latter subject however, we would not recommend many non-branded colour cartridge versions as the colour balance is sometimes inadequate and it needs to be tried first. Black may be a different matter generally, although we have not tested many ourselves. One non-branded type may be worth trying if you want to save money as it seems adequate in the limited trials we have given it. Details of this, together with paper hints and tips also, come with the 'Quick Start Guide' accompanying any Publisher Package.

A Quick Word About Paper

The above question is often coupled with another: "...and what type of paper would you recommend?" Again, there is no particular need to use the best (branded) unless you are fastidious and generally the heavier (thicker) the better as long as it's at least photo quality.

With a little shopping around we discovered that of the various non-branded versions on the market the range of both low cost glossy photo papers and old 'print' type paper marketed by one major chain was quite suitable as well as being economical (info on printing and paper types and sources come with our customer purchases).

Further printing and marketing tips are included with any purchase of our 'Complete Business Packages' in the handy 22-page "Quick Start Guide" provided on disk, although please note with our low price structure we are unable to additionally offer individual business / marketing advice and are not in a position to provide info internationally on prices/sources for items such as frames.

There are in fact a myriad possible ways to sell Prints so apart from our good kick start, as with any wholesaler, we provide the stock (the images) - the business part is left to you within the Terms of Use (copying or distribution of our digital files/disks is of course prohibited and carefully monitored).

OVERALL therefore, unless you are already a professional 'Printer' equipment and materials can be as economical as a Business Package itself - and easily and quickly absorbed by your retail sales within the prices you decide to set. With regard to the latter market research is a good business tool and this is a relatively easy task nowadays via the internet. This is a first class business based on sound reasoning so take advantage of our current special price offers and launch an easily run business today - for just peanuts!

* For more guidance about panorama printing, please go HERE.

Larger Size Prints?

WE are often asked 'how big can I print these images'? Throughout the site we have mentioned (with the exception of England Photochroms, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Western Comics, Detective Comics, Large Format Engravings, High Res. Panoramic Maps, Humorous Lithos, Seaside Scenes Vol.2 and Euro Street Scenes) that the range is currently marketed for users of standard size home printers, which is an area we are happy to specialise in for now. The above high res. subjects also offer plenty of scope for use with larger format printers however.

Bargain Priced

The images are mostly supplied pre-sized for the standard printer market (representing 99.9% of users) and they are certainly bargain priced for that sector. It would be a little unreasonable for professional publishers to expect such liberal rights on large collections of 'giant size' images for just a few Pounds, but that often appears the case. In reality many of our images are indeed suitable for larger size printing but, again, that is not a size market we feel the need to sales-test.

We make no claim to be a picture library - neither do we charge their extreme rates. Although our images may be manipulated to print any size, and many of them will also be very suitable for large printing, we cannot bend the law of physics which governs that the larger the print, inevitably the lower becomes the resolution. What then constitutes acceptable quality is a matter for individual taste and the 'how big can I print them without losing quality' type questions must of necessity be referred here for an answer.

Successfully Sold

We had to set firm limits when doing our own prints test marketing to be sure of a fully viable business product. Our prints were very successfully sold in the sizes supplied (mostly 10x8 inches plus panoramas) and on that basis of perfectly acceptable quality that is the market we have so far been very happy to aim at for the business package overall.

No Uniform Resolution

Having said that, when our range has been expanded sufficiently subject-wise and we have time to go back over everything (there isn't just one standard resolution throughout except for those subjects described as being 300dpi or more) we intend to begin the long chore of testing each of the many hundreds of images for suitability sales-wise for making one or more further large prints collections. These will then be packaged and sold separately. See our info page Here for more resolution/dpi info.

Does What is Claimed

In the meantime, our product is very successful as is and it undoubtedly does what is claimed for it in the size niche market it is largely aimed at - as our very many successful business customers will testify. Accordingly, due to the large amount of time it takes to answer e-mails on the subject of size we no longer have the resources to answer questions relating to non-standard usage, i.e. non-standard size printers.

A Fraction of the Cost

Consider our current extremely low rates. As you are probably already aware, or will be with a little research, they're just a tiny fraction of usual image library prices (with often hundreds being charged for just a single image/single use) and if you do require larger format sizes doesn't it make perfect sense therefore to buy at least one collection to test image suitability for your own specific larger format needs? You might be very pleasantly surprised at how many very high resolution images are included throughout our entire range!