office depot | Russel Ray Photos

My new enterprise, Photographic Art by Russel Ray Photos, requires that I be able to print 4×6 pictures quickly, same-day, spur of the moment. They have to be the best quality imaginable.

My old Oki C5500 color laser printer is on its last legs, so I had been looking at a new printer and the requisite cost of printer consumables like the ink and toner cartridges, drum belt, etc. It’s funny how what looks like a great printer can be $99 but the cartridges can be $49 to $259 EACH! I’ve learned over the years that the cost of the printer should not be the deciding factor when buying because, if you print a lot, that $99 printer can cost $99 a week or more for those dastardly consumables.

While I was looking around at ways to accomplish my goals with ultra high quality printing but as inexpensive as ultra high quality would allow, I discovered Office Depot’s same day photo printing service. I gave it a test run yesterday, uploading two pictures to be printed at 4×6 at my requested resolution of 300 ppi. I’ll put the two pictures in this blog post since I can’t have a blog post without pictures. This is, after all, Russel Ray Photos!

When I picked up the two pictures just three hours after submitting them, I was floored by the quality. Totally unexpected. Far superior to anything I’ve ever seen come out of a portable printer for the home. They are of a quality that I could never have gotten regardless of the type of photographic paper or the printer. They were, in one word, stunning. Can you detect that I’m gushing over these pictures?

And the cost? A mere 29¢ each.

I’ll repeat that so you don’t think it’s a typo that I didn’t catch: 29¢ each. Yes! Twenty-nine cents each!

And remember that this is same-day service. Took all of three hours!

Check out Office Depot’s printing services at http://officedepot.com/photo.