Dye Sublimation Printer Overview - Print Costs With fixed costs you are able to plan ahead as you will know your overheads in advance.

Overview: Print Sizes - Print Costs - Image Quality - Stand Alone - Profitability

Fixed Print Costs

One of the many advantages of the Dye Sublimation Process is the fixed cost per print.

Print consumables are available in fixed pack sizes and contain everything you need. Depending upon the media size and manufacturer, you can purchase a 30, 50 or 60 sheet media pack.

Most manufacturers provide the paper and film ribbon in the box. Olympus are the only company to sell the paper and ribbon separately in 50 image ribbon packs and 100 sheet paper packs.

At first it may seem that the best route is to purchase the printer which prints the largest image; this is often not the most cost effective route or the easiest printer to use. Printing one or even two 8x6 images on Kodak 1400 8.5"x14" paper, is still more expensive than a single 8"x6" using a Hi-Ti 730 Series Printer. The Hi-Ti on the other hand only prints to a maximum of 8"x6". Printer / Print Sizes information.

Many Photographers who wish to print a wide variety of sizes, purchase two printers to do the job; not only does this give you some redundancy, should the worst happen, but it also gives complete flexibility.

Though at first this may seem expensive, given the fact you need to print quite a few photos for this to be a required option, the profit made on each print would be considerable, and the payback time very quick indeed - sometimes even after your very first event.

Comparison of A4 Dye Sublimation Photo Printers from Kodak, Olympus & Mitsubishi