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printers are fairly inexpensive. They cost less than a typical
black-and-white laser printer, and much less than a color
laser printer. In fact, quite a few of the manufacturers sell
some of their printers at a loss. Quite often, you can find
the printer on sale for less than you would pay for a set
of the ink cartridges!
Why would they do this? Because they count
on the supplies you purchase to provide their profit. This
is very similar to the way the video game business works.
The hardware is sold at or below cost. Once you buy a particular
brand of hardware, then you must buy the other products that
work with that hardware. In other words, you can't buy a printer
from Manufacturer A and ink cartridges from Manufacturer B.
They will not work together.
Another way that they have reduced costs is
by incorporating much of the actual print head into the cartridge
itself. The manufacturers believe that since the print head
is the part of the printer that is most likely to wear out,
replacing it every time you replace the cartridge increases
the life of the printer.
The paper you use on an inkjet printer greatly
determines the quality of the image. Standard copier paper
works, but doesn't provide as crisp and bright an image as
paper made for an inkjet printer. There are two main factors
that affect image quality:
* Brightness
* Absorption
The brightness of a paper is normally determined
by how rough the surface of the paper is. A course or rough
paper will scatter light in several directions, whereas a
smooth paper will reflect more of the light back in the same
direction. This makes the paper appear brighter, which in
turn makes any image on the paper appear brighter.
You can see this yourself by comparing a photo
in a newspaper with a photo in a magazine. The smooth paper
of the magazine page reflects light back to your eye much
better than the rough texture of the newspaper. Any paper
that is listed as being bright is generally a smoother-than-normal
paper.
The other key factor in image quality is absorption.
When the ink is sprayed onto the paper, it should stay in
a tight, symmetrical dot. The ink should not be absorbed too
much into the paper. If that happens, the dot will begin to
feather. This means that it will spread out in an irregular
fashion to cover a slightly larger area than the printer expects
it to. The result is an page that looks somewhat fuzzy, particularly
at the edges of objects and text.
As stated, feathering is caused by the paper
absorbing the ink. To combat this, high-quality inkjet paper
is coated with a waxy film that keeps the ink on the surface
of the paper. Coated paper normally yields a dramatically
better print than other paper. The low absorption of coated
paper is key to the high resolution capabilities of many of
today's inkjet printers.
For example, a typical Epson inkjet printer
can print at a resolution of up to 720x720 dpi on standard
paper. With coated paper, the resolution increases to 1440x720
dpi. The reason is that the printer can actually shift the
paper slightly and add a second row of dots for every normal
row, knowing that the image will not feather and cause the
dots to blur together.
Before
You Buy Inkjet Photo Paper |
Paper
for Desktop Inkjet Printers |
Paper
and Ink |
Inkjet
Printer Colours | Tips
for printing digital photos at home |
Pick
the right paper and ink |
