Printing photos on an inkjet printer can get expensive. In fact, the price, per photo, can easily be up to $0.50 per photo! Did you know that if you take the amount of ink you get in an HP printer cartridge and fill up a gallon container with it, the amount of money you'll have to spend on ink will be about $8,000? It makes gasoline seem like a bargain.

So before you run out to Staples or Best Buy to purchase $8,000 per ink for your printer, here are a few suggestions on how to save money:

Buying 3rd Party Ink Cartridges

As disappointing as it is to say this, these types of cartridges generally don't offer as much savings as it appears. While the per cartridge price is less expensive. Consumer Reports found that you almost never get the same amount of page prints out of a 3rd party cartridge as you do with a name brand cartridge. I won't get too technical here, but with the name brand cartridges, the manufacturers use high powered microscopes to design the most optimized printer head. The printer head contains the tiny holes where the ink comes out onto the page.

If you're thinking of buying an inkjet cartridge from a 3rd party manufacturer, I recommend that you pay attention to how much use you get out of it. Your savings will often depend on your brand and model of printer, and the type of printing you do. There are a seemingly endless number of quality 3rd party ink cartridge manufacturers out there. Despite what the printer manufacturers claim, using 3rd party ink will NOT damage your printer. However, you'll want to check and make sure it doesn't void your warranty. However, with printer prices often as low as $50, it might be worth the savings to void your warranty.

Buying in Bulk

If you want to buy name brand, see if your local supplier sells cartridges in three or four packs. This can result in a 5% to 15% savings per cartridge. Cartridges have a shelf life of around a year, so think about how much printing you actually do before buying.

If you want a greater savings, most 3rd party ink cartridge suppliers will sell three or four packs at a discount. So, in addition to the savings you'll get on 3rd party ink, you'll actually save an additional 5% to 20% on purchasing in bulk.

Get Your Own Cartridges Refilled

This is the method that offers the greatest savings. The inkjet refill business has been booming over the last few years. According to the New York Times, it has grown to become a $6.5 billion industry. Professional ink refillers are NOT guys using syringes injecting ink into your cartridge. Franchises like Cartridge World have $200,000 machines on site that will suck the old ink out of the cartridge, then centrifuge out any remaining ink to keep the new ink from being contaminated. Then the insides of the cartridge will be cleaned and then refilled.

Cartridge World's ink is so similar to Hewlett Packard's ink that in 2006, HP filed a lawsuit against Cartridge World, claiming that they were infringing on their ink patents. HP also sued InkCycle, who refills under the Staples brand name for the same thing. If HP thinks that highly of these companies' inks, then it's likely that they're using ink of a similar quality.

Staples, Cartridge World, and now even Walgreens offer a refill service for $10 to $15 per cartridge. I recommend that you don't get a 3rd party cartridge refilled. If you're going to use this cartridge up to seven times, go ahead and splurge on the best quality print cartridge made by the actual manufacturer. You'll get more refills out of it.