Your digital camera may take high resolution photos, but unless you have a good printer and the best ink cartridges, your treasured memories could be nothing more than streaky blur on the page. Photo printing depends as much on the printer as it does the ink and paper. You need to choose your printer according to the ink cartridges and ink type. An inkjet photo printer is always going to be the best but how do you know what basic specs to look for?
image credit:Rutger de Moddertukker
Canon PIXMA iP 6700 D Photo Printer
Canon is at the forefront of digital photography so it makes sense that they have produced a photo printer that matches up. The significance of the Canon PIXMA is the print head technology and the use of six ink tanks for high-resolution printing. You can print directly from your PC, camera, a compatible memory card and your camera phone. It has a 3.5-inch LCD screen that lets you edit and enhance your photo right before printing. You can print a 4 x 6 inch glossy photo in 47 seconds and an 8.x 10 in photo in 76 seconds, which make it fast without compromising on quality.
Ink Cartridges: The Canon uses a ChromaLife100 ink system that delivers the ink through 3,072 nozzles that allow for extremely crisp glossy photos at a high resolution. With two high intensity photo ink cartridges and 4 conventional ink cartridges, (CLI-8 photo cyan and CLI-8 photo magenta, CLI-8 black, CLI-8 cyan, CLI-8 magenta, CLI-8 yellow,) you get the highest quality photo shop prints.
Separate ink tanks mean that you save money on printing costs because you can just replace the ones that you need. The Canon range of printers has a permanent ink head instead of the ink head integrated into the cartridge.
Epson Stylus Photo R380 Inkjet Printer
Promising professional quality photos form a home printer, this inkjet printer deliver with 8 specialized inkjet cartridges. You can also print onto CD and DVD covers for extra multimedia capability. The ink cartridges for the Epson Stylus deliver on speed and resolution and the printer comes with built in software that is compatible with both PC and Mac operating systems. The Matte Black and gloss ink optimizers within the ink cartridges make sure that your photo last linger and have less banding than others.
Ink Cartridges: The ink droplet size is less than 4 picoliters allowing for extra fine detail and print quality.
Epson ink technology utilizes Durabrite ultra ink cartridges that are a pigment-based ink. This stops ‘bleeding’ on your page and dries faster because it does not have to be water-soluble. The only drawback to the Epson ink cartridges and printer is that to achieve the best results, you must use original Epson paper.
HP B3850 Photosmart Pro Photo Printer
With an extra black ink cartridge for laser quality documents, this printer is a versatile addition to your home. The HP Vivera ink cartridge technology uses six individual cartridges with extra fine nozzle technology for the best-printed glossy photo that will last for over 25 years in your photo album. HP will let you print a 4 x 6 inch glossy border-less photo in just 26 seconds.
Ink Cartridges: HP has developed an ink cartridge that uses a dye instead of pigment-based inks. This offer superb quality if you need to print high gloss photos. The HP ink cartridge does not dilute the ink to achieve lighter colors, which can affect the durability of glossy photos. The system starts with the lightest shades and slowly darkens as required.
Guest post by Oliver from PrinterInks, online stockists of Canon, Epson and HP ink cartridges, as well as toner and ink cartridges from many other leading brands.
