Early adopters will always pay a higher price to lead the wave. Just as with the computer hardware market, prices will drop relatively fast, and camera features will quickly become more sophisticated. New competitors such as Kodak, Fuji, and Epson are transferring knowledge from other imaging sectors, and entering the camera race, joining established players such as Canon and Nikon.

The cost of printing your own 8" x 10" colour photo, with custom cropping and adjustment done on your PC, utilizing the printer's colour correction and image enhancement software, printed on paper which is intended to mimic the appearance of traditional photographic paper, will cost about $1.50 or less including the cost of paper and ink. A custom cropped print from a photo dealer will normally cost more on the order of $5.00. And the directions and software normally come with the printer to create your own cards, post cards, and calendars.

If you take the view that you need a printer for your computer anyway, then there is no up front cost to factor in to this analysis for the cost of an 8" x 10" print.

Keep in mind the print will be only as good, in fact not quite as good, as the image you start with. The larger the image file, and the better the image capture method, the better your print will be. However, good results can be created from a consumer grade scan of a 6" x 4" print, a medium resolution negative/slide scanned professionaly onto a CD, or an image captured on one of the better consumer level digital cameras.