Choosing A Printer
© Mark LaMonica. All Rights Reserved.
Choosing a printer these days is as easy as picking your favorite brand and how much you want to spend. Yes, inkjet printer
technology has come that far in the last 20 years and with stable inks and archival papers you can now enjoy true photo quality right
from your own home. A few choices are, All-In-One which is a copier-scanner-printer, Personal Photo Lab which is a portable printer
that makes 4x6 prints and can run off a battery in remote locations, Photo Printer which makes up an 8.5”x11” print, Professional
Printers that take sheet paper or rolls up to 44” wide. There are Extreme Large Format printers that are just too big for any practical
printing on a personal or fine art level.
The 2 common types of ink being used at this time are dye based and pigment based. Dye based inks have come a long way in
archival stability matching or surpassing some Pigment based inks. On the other end the Pigment based inks were known for
longevity, but tended to clog the printer nozzles over time. Like I said, technology has come a long way and it’s still improving which
means the best way to make your choice is to look at the type and archival rating of ink and then what sizes of paper it can handle.
Now what about paper? This is where you can really get confused since there are papers being offered by printer manufacturers and
stand alone paper companies. Check back in the next issue for some insight on paper.