For my theatre gigs I've been going along to take photos on the final dress rehearsal. I then download and roughly process the pictures that night / following morning and print out a contact sheets (approx 30 pictures per page, so maybe up to 10 pages) which I deliver the following day to the director.

I also upload larger versions to a website and give them the URL to look at them in more detail.

The cast then choose what they want and send me an order form with what they would like prints of.

Is there a better (good quality but minimising cost) way of printing contact sheets (nice paper and the criminal cost of inkjet ink makes one cringe) given the time constraints? Local supermarket has a printing kiosk with a 1 hr service which I guess could be used...

Is doing this online out of the question? A few years ago I used to shoot fashion shows and would process my images into "sheets" with fairly good sized images (about 3"x2", watermarked) which gave the designers and models as much information as required to determine if they wanted a print copy or not. Backstage I would hand out my business cards with the URL of the site and all they had to do was select the pictures to create their order and click the submit button to start placing it. I couldn't use contact sheets as the shoots were one or two nights only (designers wouldn't show two nights in a row and some models were only there one night as well) so online was the easiest option.

Not everyone has access to the internet I'm afraid.

I did consider a gallery on CD - but if someones got a computer, they've generally got internet these days - or they could put it into their DVD player, but again, if they've got a DVD player, they may well be sufficiently "up-to-date" to have heard of this interweb thing...

The last production, my colour printer ran out of ink, so I did black and white ones on a laser printer, with colour versions online.

what about investing in a colour laser printer? can be had for about £250 now. cheaper to run in the long run that inkjet.

It's a pity you don't have a Costco nearby. You can now upload your photos on-line, and get them printed the same (or next day if overnight). An A4 print is only 99p+VAT and the quality is very good for a budget service.

Their upload tool even allows you to make changes to the picture in terms of saturation, contrast, gamma etc so you get exactly the images you want.

Colour lasers are OK, but are expensive to run when it comes to toner replacement. It's almost as cheap to buy a whole new printer in some cases. We've got one at work, but picture quality on normal paper isn't that great, but OK for drafts.

John

Bulk ink system?

Fotospeeds system for the dye based 1 works out at 56 quid for 6x 125ml tanks. Damn sight cheaper than my epson, although I have yet to see the quality doen at home. Their prints at Focus were impressive, but you can never be sure their "true" results.