I have a request for a photo on a graduation cake and I'm not sure how to go about it. I don't want to invest in the printer and edible inks so I'm looking for other ideas. Wilton has little cake topper photo frames but I don't see a graduation one and the photo is only 2x2 inch. I think the customer is thinking more 3x5 or 5x7.

The grocery store or super wal-mart will do it for you for about $5-8 for an 8x10 inch sheet. Don't get it done too far in advance, though

You can take a regular photo, laminate it [ or cover well with clear contact paper]
and then place that on the cake holding it down with a buttercream border. [ you can also raise it up a bit with mini marshmallows so it is not sitting on the frosted cake]
On a fondant cake, you can make a 'scroll' of fondant, add the photo and place that on the cake. If you have rice paper, you can print on that with 'regular printer ink', mount that on fondant or gumpaste plaque and place that on the cake. This is how I do it all the time...as I did not want 'another' printer tob make edible images....and the recipient can save the plaque as a memento!

There are several companies who will print them for you. Several are on Ebay that you can use. If you let me know where you are from, perhaps I can give you several names of people in your area that print the images. One thing I suggest to my customers who are just starting out printing is that they offer their services to other area bakeries, decorators...etc... There is plenty of business for everyone and so it helps to help people!!!

I ditto both the ideas of laminating and making a fondant plaque. I have done both successfully. In my area, we can purchase the edible image paper from the cake supply store. I use that to make my print with regular ink.

I have printed directly onto a transparency. The ink is on the top- the side not touching the cake. Then I just place it on the cake.

Here's a photo cake I did. Although I was able to print the photos on my edible image printer, this could have easily been done with real photos.