With most inkjet printers used by photographers it has been difficult to calculate the cost of ink per photograph. An information panel in the Epson printer utility keeps track of the total ink use per color for each of the last 10 prints. This is handy when a large print job comes up and you need to keep an accurate costing of materials.

- Job No. 0 - User Name : Philip Greenwood
Doc Name : Malacoota Basalt.tiff
Job State : Complete Start : 01/30/07 22:11:17 End : 01/30/07 22:19:06
Paper Used : W 327mm x H 445mm Page Count : 1
Ink Used : PK 0.35ml C 0.08ml M 0.09ml Y 0.29ml
Ink Used : LK 0.29ml LC 0.22ml LM 0.67ml LLK 0.19ml

So if you add all the ink together and you know your cost per ml you get the exact cost for this image. I see that Ultralchrome K3 is around $150 for 220ml. That is .6818 per ml. Ink used = 2.18 ml. So this print cost $1.48636 in ink.

The print I used as a test was an A3 image to A3+ Hahnemuhle Fine Art Pearl 285 gsm using Hahnemuhle profile. This material is around $5.87 per sheet. So for this image, chosen as an average density and color costs $7.36 in materials. Thanks David for the tip.