Digital BW, The Print

Mark, didn't know you were a lab, sorry.

Maybe you'd agree that the biggest inkjet/digital advantage for
someone who's serious about selling prints is the ability simply to
order up or print a proven file, getting identical tones, contrast,
"dodging/burning" every time.     
 
Lets assume someone has a dozen successful negs they want to print
repeatedly into the future, 16X20 per your mention. This customer pays
his rent with these images. How much would he pay your lab for each,
inkjet and fiber/silver, if he ordered, say, 10 at a time from each
negative? That's the kind of business some of the serious gallery
photogs do.  

A lab I worked for (I did sales/marketing) did a deal like that for
someone in San Francisco...we held perhaps twenty 6X7 color negatives,
continuously maintaining inventory of maybe a dozen prints each in our
facility. After a while the photographer never actually ordered us to
make prints, he just ordered from our maintained inventory. Nice deal
both ways...I think he paid about 2/3 our ordinary 10+ print price and
he'd order twenty or thirty prints every couple of weeks, walking in
to shoot the bull and drink our coffee each time. I think he got $125
each for them, mounted and simply framed, selling directly to business
front offices (like an insurance salesman!..amazing!) 

Djon


--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Mark Savoia
<mark@c...> wrote:
> I agree (sort of).
> 
> Well, we are a lab, and our pricing is comparable to individual  
> "edition only" printers, perhaps even less. We get more for a 16x20  
> fiber b&w then we do for a 16x20 inkjet quad print. It sure takes a  
> lot longer to do a traditional print. And we are based in one of the  
> most expensive parts of the country to run a business. Just how it  
> works out.
> Mark
> 
> On Jun 2, 2005, at 4:50 PM, Djon wrote:
> 
> > Why deal with a lab?