Top 10 Tips for Purchasing a New Color Printer

Top 10 Tips for Purchasing a New Color Printer: "Don't ignore the cost of consumables! This will be your greatest expense over time. Try and determine what your actual print cost per page will be. Don't rely only on manufactures data. They all will have you believe they are the fastest and least expensive to use. Their claims of 20 pages per minute really turn out to be four when you use it in a real world setting. Claims of 15 cents per page are based on 5% page coverage with spot color. You results may be closer to $1.00 per page. If you are looking at Inkjet find one that has individual tanks for each color. This might add up to a savings. Canon and Epson both have this capability. "

Making Images Last a Lifetime

Making Images Last a Lifetime: "Alison Nordstrom, curator of photographs at George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film in Rochester, N.Y., warns, 'Digital hard copies printed from an inkjet printer have greater stability in maintaining colors and lasting images, but if they get even slightly wet the ink will create lovely colored water.' Your only strategy is to make sure water never comes in contact with your digital prints."

Inkjet Printers - background Info

Although inkjets were available in the 1980s, it was only in the 1990s that prices dropped enough to bring the technology to the high street. Canon claims to have invented what it terms 'bubble jet' technology in 1977, when a researcher accidentally touched an ink-filled syringe with a hot soldering iron. The heat forced a drop of ink out of the needle and so began the development of a new printing method.

Inkjet printers have made rapid technological advances in recent years. The three-color printer has been around for several years now and has succeeded in making color inkjet printing an affordable option; but as the superior four-color model became cheaper to produce, the swappable cartridge model was gradually phased out.

Inkjets have one massive attraction over laser printers; they produce color, and that is what makes them so popular with home users. The down side is that although inkjets are generally cheaper to buy than lasers, they are more expensive to maintain. Cartridges need to be changed more frequently and the special coated paper required to produce high-quality output is very expensive.

When it comes to comparing the cost per page, inkjets work out about ten times more expensive than laser printers.

Since the invention of the inkjet, color printing has become immensely popular. Research in inkjet technology is making continual advances.
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