What features of a laser printer affect the quality of the prints? What does the printing speed matter? How about the "droplet size"? And for that matter, what's the difference between micro piezo and thermal ink-jet head technologies?
What features of a laser printer affect the quality of the prints? What does the printing speed matter? How about the "droplet size"? And for that matter, what's the difference between micro piezo and thermal ink-jet head technologies?
It's all covered in "Buying an Ink Jet Printer for Dummies," a free booklet from Epson and IDG Books, publisher of the "(Such-and-such) for Dummies" series.
Once considered a luxury, photo-quality printers are now standard equipment for designers, photographers and artists, who are more likely to produce their own photo-quality output in-house then they were even four years ago, regardless of the size of their operation.
"Buying an Ink Jet Printer for Dummies" provides computer users with buying tips for an informed purchasing decision.
Editor's note: By way of clarification, the booklet "Buying an Ink Jet Printer for Dummies" is not about finding printers that are intended "for dummies," nor a guide to shopping on behalf of dummies. Rather, the book is a guide for dummies themselves on buying ink-jet printers, regardless of the intelligence level at which the printers are aimed. Probably a better title would have been "Ink-Jet-Printer-Buying for Dummies."
Wait, you're asking: Why should I trust Epson, which sells printers, to tell me what kind of printer to buy? Indeed, the booklet is partially a promotional tool for the company: One section lists 10 reasons to purchase an Epson printer. But it also gives general information that's not loaded with an Epson bias, such as 10 important questions to ask before purchasing an ink jet printer. We recommend you consider this booklet as a good start in your printer-shopping education. Augment it with opinions from your friends, co-workers, and other makers (links to manufacturer sites are below)
Furthermore, the booklet has info that will help you after you buy a printer - how to use different kinds of paper and descriptions of a variety of projects that can be used with each type of printer.
You can request a copy of "Buying an Ink Jet Printer for Dummies" in the United States and Canada by calling1-800-GO-EPSON. You can read a blurb about the booklet on Epson's Web site but can't download it there.
Most digital color printers originated as proofing devices for making quick approval prints for a client before producing separations, and many photographers and artists still use their ink-jet printers in this way. Since the image will ultimately be viewed by reflected light and not transmitted light, many designers prefer to view them that way, too.A paper proof printed on inexpensive but high-quality media--such as Agfa's Premium Inkjet Paper-provides insurance that the image or design will look the way is should. Because the screen gamma of Windows and Mac OS computers is different, the safest way to make sure that digital images look the way you want is to provide guide prints. These proofs, made on such high-quality media as Pictorico's Pro Photo Gallery Hi-Gloss Film, should represent a paper version of the original image, letting anyone handling the digital file know the artist's intentions.
Like many photographers, I deliver ink-jet output directly to clients as a final print for images that don't require long life, such as business portraits or model head shots. Lately, I've been delivering these images on Epson's Photo Quality and Ilford's' Inkjet Photo Paper, using an Epson Stylus Photo 1200 printer. For most applications, the people receiving the prints don't even ask if they are digital; they look like "real" photographs. I tend to use Epson's paper for color images and Ilford's for black-and-white.
Grayscale images printed on Ilford's paper look as good as any printed in a conventional darkroom. While I still use slides and digital images on CD-ROM as part of my portfolio presentation, I find myself using ink-jet prints more and more because of their cost-and their ability to update images and create a customized portfolio to meet the demands of a specific situation. If you're meeting with a potential client, you can, for example, quickly assemble a collection of images showing your best architectural work. These customized portfolios can be assembled in far less time and with far less expense than having prints made by a custom photographic lab.
There's more to using a photorealistic printer than just its output quality. You should also consider its paper-handling characteristics, the quality of its consumables and even the software driver. One of the most overlooked aspects of purchasing an ink-jet printer is how the cost of consumables affects total cost of ownership (TCO). The most obvious consumable is the ink cartridge. It's difficult to determine how long an individual cartridge will last, because it depends on how you use the printer. If you print many large color images, instead of a few smaller ones, the ink won't last as long. Ink can also dry out while waiting to be used. If unopened, the shelf life for cartridges in Epson's Stylus Photo family of printers, for example, is two years from production date. Otherwise, the ink will last six months (at or below 77 degrees F) after the package has been opened.
To achieve true photographic quality output, the single most important consumable is your choice of paper or media. As far as image quality is concerned, the paper is almost as important as the print-head design. High quality ink-jet papers are available from most printer companies and traditional photographic paper companies, such as Agfa, Ilford, Kodak and Luminos. To get optimum results from these papers, be sure to read the instructions for adjusting the printer's driver to suit the specific paper you're using. Even a small change in a driver settings can produce a noticeably better-or worse-result.
One of the best ways to evaluate different kinds of printers (as well as different brands of paper) is to compare test prints. I'm not talking about the kind of test prints you see in computer and electronics stores where you press a button and output rolls off of the printer. While these files are usually optimized to make the printer look good, the output can be compromised if the paper used is either the best or cheapest available. In this setting, there are too many variables present to use these test prints to compare one printer with another. The key to comparing results from different papers is to create a standardized test file and use it to compare results.
Your test file should reflect the kind of images you normally work with. Use Adobe Photoshop, or your favorite image-editing program, to save a photograph in a high-resolution format such as the Tagged Image File Format (TIFF). The file should fit on a 100 MB Iomega Zip or 120 MB Imation SuperDisk cartridge, so you can take it to the store to make a crank-out print. Instead of making the image 8 inches by 10 inches (full letter size), keep it around 5 inches by 7 inches. This will make the file size smaller and will require less time to print. Print the image on your own printer, but also ask friends if you can output it on their printers.
Your customized test file can be a big help when evaluating different kinds of paper brands and will let you, after a little testing, find the best paper to create the optimum quality of output from your printer.
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Equal Time
Links to other printer-makers: --ComputerUser Contributing Editor Joe Farace, a Colorado writer and photographer, is the author or co-author of 21 books on computing, graphics, and digital imaging. Copyright 1999 ComputerUser Magazine. Used with permission.
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