subject: Printers, performance and inks- Making sense of your printing needs [print this page] Printers are hard working machines, and they're usually pretty reliable. The performance problems often relate to maintenance, materials, and using the right inks. It's worth your while to spend some time researching what your printer needs for best performance, and checking out theink cartridge and toner situation.
Printers and print jobs- Matching your printer to your work
The type of jobs your printer needs to do define the type of printer you need. Most people have multi function printers, which are also scanners, copiers and faxes.
If you run your own business, your printer will be doing a lot of work of all kinds, which means you need a high performance, name brand printer. These printers are used for everything, all the time.
For example:
A professional freelance graphic artist requires a printer which:
Has high resolution scanner
Has high quality printing capacity
Makes good colour photo quality copies
Can do a lot of hard copy
Works with advanced graphics software
Can work with various types of media
The type of printer required will be an upmarket, heavy duty printer, either a laser printer or a good inkjet printer. It needs to work with the advanced graphic software, and be a good, durable machine.
Printer performance issues
Most people have had mixed experiences with home printers, some being very good printers, and others being pretty hopeless, particularly the cheap brands and the notorious "plastic printers" which seem to have very short product lives and break down regularly.
It's worth investing in a name brand printer, because these printers are much better designed. Even if you don't really need a top of the range printer, the good quality printers are reliable, low maintenance, and produce far better prints. They're also not very expensive these days, and you can save a lot of frustration, as well as money, by getting a good printer.
Printer inks and performance
Printer inks are made based on printer design, product testing, printer calibration for colour performance. Printers don't actually use a lot of ink on a print. The differences in colour levels are created by using more of one colour on successive prints, because of the printer calibration, which uses tone and colour mixes to produce colours. If your picture contains a lot of green, the printer will use more blue and yellow, for example.
Because printers themselves differ a lot in design, ink usage will also vary, because the calibrations are different. This is particularly so with newer printers, which are more efficient, and use "half tone" colour mixes, which are more accurate. These printers use their inks more efficiently.
If you do a lot of printing, and want to save on ink, bulk discount cartridges and inkcartridge refills are the way to go. You can get very good deals on ink from online suppliers, and sometimes you don't even have to pay for shipping. A good printer and good deals on your ink will give you great performance, all the time.
Printers, performance and inks- Making sense of your printing needs
