A great expose on the real price of ink-jet printers.
Note that laser printers are a lot more economical to run and the bigger the machine, the more the economics of scale comes in to play so the lower the cost per page.
There is a brisk market for 3rd party ink cartridges. These are off-brand, manufactured by a different company and are usually a lot more reasonably priced. Google. Amazon sells them. For photographic printers, there are some companies that make Continuous Ink Supply Systems (CISS) - these are external tanks which replace the ink cartridges entirely. Bypassing them. Here, here, here and here.
One problem with photo quality ink jet printers is that, over time, the heads can dry out and individual nozzles clog up. This produces white bands across the image. I like this software - it allows for a lot of flexibility in printing and it can also kick out a small print every few days to keep the heads wet. It's only $80 for the full version. Check out QImage Ultimate
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