The Importance of Quality Printer Inks to Obtaining the Image Quality You Expect

The Importance of Quality Printer Inks to Obtaining the Image Quality You Expect

Apart from the competition among the various printer manufacturers on who is perceived to have the better printers in terms of cost, quality, reliability, etc., another supplier in the business of printer inks has emerged that has forced HP, Epson and Canon ink manufacturers to fight back to regain lost share. The advent of refilled cartridges from generic supply companies of all sizes has thrown the field wide open in terms of quality, consistency and cost. Since printer inks touch every part of the printing system such as the print head, paper and, for example, an HP 343 cartridge, it must be formulated in such a way that the images on the paper, be it text or photos, register cleanly and produce colours that the user expects from the printer. The purity of the ink is of utmost concern not just for manufacturers but also for the users themselves. Impurities as small as 0.001 percent can reduce image quality and clog print heads. End-users have to ensure that the ink they use come from manufacturers who use advanced filtration systems and clean manufacturing technologies to maintain a consistent level of purity quality every time.

If the purpose of the printer is for occasional use only, then the needs of that particular user would be best served by an entry level model from any of the well-known printer manufacturers. However, what type of printer to buy, whether laser or inkjet, would depend on what the printer would be most-used for. If the majority of your printing will be black and white text, it would make sense to buy a black and white laser printer as the toner cartridge will print thousands of pages. A colour laser will enable you to output photos but the general consensus is that inkjets provide noticeably better quality. Social media types would most probably prefer a colour printer, and inkjets offer very good quality and compatibility with various media types, from plain paper, photo paper, even handmade paper, to transfer paper for ironing on T-shirts. For users such as these, total cost of ownership would not be a big factor in their purchase. Convenience and ease of use would be the overriding factors in choosing one printer over the other. Amazingly, there are also colour laser printers now that sell for $80. Lasers provide sharper text and are faster than inkjet printers. In the long run, cost per page is lower with laser printers because they print more pages, compared to an ink cartridge. Initial outlay for toner cartridges is higher though, which is what puts people off. Inkjets are the better choice though for photo printing and cheaper to operate for low volume use.

Printing quality photos requires a system that uses a very high degree of precision in placing the ink on paper. For this reason quality printer inks in inkjet cartridges fit that requirement. The naked eye reportedly notices dot-placement errors as little as 4/10,000 of an inch, so there's very little margin of error in photo printing. Complex algorithms in the printer driver/software should be able to evaluate the photo properly before distributing the colours on the paper. Depending on the manufacturer, the printer cartridge would have a chip that would help manage the dense pattern of ink nozzles on the print head to ensure the best pattern for the task at hand, be it printing simple black and white text or (microscopically) spraying various colour hues onto the paper.

All current ink jet printer inks that are being used in the home and non-specialized businesses use a similar formulation. The basic components of printer inks nowadays are de-ionized water as the solvent, isopropyl alcohol or glycol as the drying agent, and dye base or pigments which provide the colour. These materials are mixed with the manufacturer's individual proprietary ingredients to produce the proportions that make up printer inks. Depending on the printer's speed, print head design and other capabilities, the actual proportions will vary. All dye-based ink jet ink formulations lack water resistance. For example, the Vivera inks used in the HP 343 cartridge are dye-based.

Pigmented printer inks on the other hand use small particles suspended in the base solution to provide the colour. To keep the particles from settling out of the solution, the pigment particles are coated with a polymer material to generate a static charge around the particle, thereby keeping the particles from clumping together. This prevents clogged print heads and uneven colour on the page. The type of Canon ink used in BC-23, BCI-3BK, BCI-5BK cartridges are pigment-based.

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