It totally depends on what you want to print. For convenience sake, I'd much rather do it at home than take it to Walmart or something where I've been hearing stories of certain images not wanting to print. I think it only costs about $0.29 to print a 4x6 picture. 8x10's are right around $3.00 or so. 4x6 papers are about 15-20 cents a sheet and 8-1/2 x 11 sheets are around 25-30 cents a sheet. Honestly the ink is what's going to keep costing and I have no idea on how to break it down per picture.
Photo printers that do a good job are getting cheaper and cheaper. Its the ink that's expensive. I think Gordon has a printer(Epson) that goes for about $50 and he's really happy with it. My HP7150 goes for about $150 and I've very good luck with it. The HP5550 fetches around $100 and does a great job too.
The factor that may sway you is the quality and longevity of the prints. If you just want to show some people and don't care if it doesn't last for 20 years, printing at home is probably more convenient and cheaper. For more archival quality, your best bet is to send out for it at dpcprints or at snapfish or some service like that. If you can get your pics to work at Walmart, then that's even better. But I've heard numerous people have had problems.
I don't know if that helps at all, but thats my input. Good luck. I'll sway you to go buy a printer, because really they aren't that expensive for normal size printers and they serve the instant gratification types like me.
Bob
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