Ink & Toner Information Website

Let’s get the technical bit out of the way first; colour laser printers come in two distinct engine types. The carousel type printer uses for different colour toner cartridges that rotate over a central drum unit, laying down each colour of toner in turn and making a total of four passes over the drum or imaging unit. Epson, Konica Minolta, Lexmark and Samsung all use a variation of this technique. Canon and HP cartridges come in one complete unit per colour that contains both the toner and drum giving each colour its own drum as opposed to sharing a central unit.

So which system is best? There is no correct answer to this question although I personally favour the option used by the Canon, HP duo. With this system there is no uncertainty as to how long the drum will last, it is replaced with every new cartridge. With the carousel system the life of the drum can be dramatically reduced from quoted figures if the colour content of your output rises over the standard 5%. The more colour printing you do the more passes over the central drum unit, the greater the wear on the unit and the more often it will need to be replaced.

If you are replacing an ink printer it is worth bearing in mind that these color laser printers are somewhat larger, heavier and noisier, so if desktop space is tight check out the dimensions before committing to a purchase. The smallest, lightest and quietest color laser printer is the Samsung CLP300, when it was originally introduced this was probably the cheapest color laser printer on the market and thus an argument could be made for its purchase. Times change very quickly in this market and a sub £90 price is no longer bargain basement territory. If you only intend to print colour text and charts then it will perform well enough but the quality of any color output beyond this will I fear disappoint.

Moving to the dearest will give us the Lexmark C500N. This printer is almost twice the price of the tiny Samsung and in true Lexmark style is also the most expensive to run, in its favour it is network ready and has the fastest mono speed but this does nothing to compensate for its high costs.

The Epson AcuLaser C1100 has been one of my favourite colour printers since its introduction, it is still one of the fastest printers of its type and print quality is still above average, I feel however that it is now getting a little long in the tooth and the new Konica Minolta Magicolor 2530DL now offers several advantages. With an ethernet 10/100 base TX interface for networking and Pictbridge via a special USB on the front for downloading direct from a digital camera this has moved the goalposts and it tries to replicate ink printer facilities closer than seen before on colour laser printers. The standard 64mb Ram is also twice that on offer from the Epson and should ensure capable handling of even the most complex colour work. Whilst print quality is above average, the printer speed, especially for colour disappoints and is this printer’s major flaw. Be aware also that both these printers are delivered with low capacity cartridges offering only 1,500 colour prints, these will require replacing all too soon. The upside is that high capacity cartridges are readily available and offer better value with a capacity at around 4,500pages.

That just leaves the HP Color Laserjet 1600 and the Canon i-Sensys LBP5000 to be considered. Both of these printers use the same Canon engine so it comes as no surprise that the specifications match with a print speed of 8ppm and a print quality of 600×600dpi. Neither of these printers has an abundance of memory with the HP the most generous at 16mb, the Canon’s 8mb is particularly stingy and may struggle to cope with very complex colour work. The other main difference is in the price, the HP printer can easily be found online at a price under the magical £100 mark whereas the Canon at £50 more is competing with the HP’s big brother, the Color LaserJet 2600. As is the norm the printers are shipped with starter cartridges which give a maximum yield of 1,000 pages and will need to be replaced fairly quickly, fortunately both HP original cartridges and compatible cartridges are readily available from around £120 for a full set of cartridges yielding 2,000 pages.

We have used HP laser printers in our own offices for many years and have always found them to be both reliable and economical, especially if compatible cartridges are used. We have noticed some criticism online of a problem with colour bleed with the HP Color LaserJet 1600, we have not been able to substantiate these claims and only a small number of users seem to experience it, I am beginning to wonder if the quality of the paper may be at fault and not the printer. We have tried using some fairly low quality paper in an attempt to replicate the fault but so far have not experienced any degree of colour bleed.

So, if you are looking for your first Colour Laser Printer, and do not want to spend a fortune, look no further than the HP Color LaserJet 1600 – a fine buy at less than £100.

There has been an explosion of photo printers in the last few years, and with that has come lower prices for these machines. The majority of photo printers are going to cost between $100-$300, although you can find machines either higher or lower than those prices depending on what you are looking for.
Printer manufacturers know that when it comes to photo printers, they must do something to make their models stand out among the ever-increasing crowd and make it seem like they have the best photo printer. The way that they do that is by giving names to their ink and their technology. So you will see things like Epson UltraChrome, HP Vivera and Canon ChromaLife. The truth of the matter is that is probably very difficult for the average eye to spot differences between these three types of printer ink. Ink is ink. If you are a professional looking to sell or exhibit your work, then you may actually have a combination of one manufacturer’s ink and paper that gives you noticeably better results than others. For the common user just using standard photo paper to print pictures for themselves or family and friends, the difference between types of printer ink probably does not mean that much. We have found, though, that there is a difference between results on normal paper and on photo paper. So if you are going for the best results, invest in the best photo paper.
One important thing to remember is that if you purchase an HP Photosmart printer that does not feature their individual ink cartridges, you could be in for some inconvenience if you print the same types of colors over and over. For instance, if you only print pictures of people’s faces, then odds are you are going to run out of yellow first. Therefore, if you remember always using one color more than others on your previous machine, then maybe an HP isn’t the best photo printer for you.

Many people still have large number of old fashion photo paper prints in their homes. Even if you threw away your old film camera and you are exclusively using digital there is a good chance that you still have many photos that are important to you in paper prints format. It is a good idea to upgrade those prints to the new digital format – here is how,
it is most likely that your photo prints are organized in this way or another in photo albums. The old fashion photo album book had two main purposes. First it was intended to allow for easier organization and browsing of photos as photo albums can be categorized by event, year or any in any other way that make sense to you. The second purpose was to protect the paper prints. Paper ages it fades and turn yellow. Albums are safer provide a safer environment allowing paper prints to last longer.
There are three main types of old fashion prints: paper, slides and negatives. Paper prints are the most common format. The usually come in standard sizes like 4X6 and 5X7. Negatives which are developed film are saved to allow future new prints of your photos. Slides are similar to negatives but they allow projection of the photo on a big screen using a special slide projector.
Upgrading your old photo paper stack involves some technique of converting paper photos to digital pixel based photos. This process is also known as scanning. Some device is used to electronically read or view the paper photo and convert it into a series of pixels each with its unique color and intensity. All those pixels put together comprise a digital photo that can be store as a computer file. This computer file, usually in the common JPEG format can then be used as any other digital camera photo file.
Different scanning methods vary in cost and quality. While you can spend a large sum of money to professionally scan your photos for most home users a cheap and simple scanning method will suffice. Photo paper prints can be effectively scanned by a simple scanner device that you can buy for less than $100. This process is time consuming though since you will need to manually feed every photo to the scanner. For a large number of photos you could choose to either by a more sophisticated scanner with an automatic photo feeder or to mail your photo prints to a professional scanning service.
One thing to consider when scanning photo prints is the scanning resolution: The same way that your digital camera has a mega pixels number that determines the number of pixels in a digital photo – scanners have a similar attribute that determines how many mega pixels are going to be in the converted digital photo file. This is also known as the scanner resolution and it is measured by the number of dots per inch that the scanner can produce.
After you have converted your paper prints to digital photo files you can do anything that you can do with any other digital camera generated photo files. In addition to simply viewing them on your computer screen, you can share them with family and friends, use photo processing software to enhance them and more. And the most important thing, once converted to digital photo files they will never fade, turn yellow or lose their quality.

Your love for taking digital photos and sharing them with family and friends comes to culmination only when you take print-out of the pictures you snap. With a printer in your home, you may not like to send them to a photo lab. Being not a specialist in photo printing, how can you ensure that you will get excellent print-outs even in your home! Well, a proper selection of photo paper will help you in this regard.
You may not reason out why a proper selection of photo paper is necessary. In fact, the variety offered by the market with regard to photo quality inkjet papers may seem to be overwhelming. With a large variety of options around, anybody may feel dizzy as to which one to choose. Each and every manufacturer claims that it is offering the best quality. Hence, there is the necessity of discerning decision.
However, the task is not as tedious as it may appear to you. There are certain criteria that make photo paper worthy of selection. You can judge the papers on the basis of the criteria and make your pick. Brightness, weight, caliper, and finish should be the main point of importance while making a decision.  It is a technical truth hat the higher the opacity of the photo paper, the less the printed text and images will bleed through to the other side of it. So, examine how transparent is the paper! If you are thinking of double-sided printing then give special emphasize on this point.
Brightness of photo paper plays an important role in the quality of the pictures. And there are many different levels of whiteness or brightness. Technically brightness is judged as a number from 1 to 100; and a height of 90s make good quality Photo Paper. To determine brightness simply compare two or more papers side-by-side. Along with these factors, give importance to other points like weight of the paper and their finishing.

Photo printers are printers designed to print good quality photographs on photo paper. They have many nozzles and have printing droplets as small as 1 Pico liter. Many have digital meter readers or memory cards that print without the help of a computer. Some of the latest printers can even print directly from a camera or from a camera in a docking station or “PictBridge” that supports this feature.
Before choosing a digital photo printer, assess your needs. Do note that photo-specialized printers may not be good at any other kind of printing, and even if these do print, it will be very expensive. When you buy a printer, keep in mind the running costs, including paper, ink, or toner. These costs are frequent, and they will have to be considered. It should also offer waterproof and long-lasting prints. Usually, thermal-dye printers have a clear over coating to shield the image, while inkjet printers are usually waterproof.
When choosing a printer, ensure that the proportions on the image sensor and printer match. If these do not, then the picture may have to be cropped or you may have to trim down the size to fit it to the page.
Memory is also an important factor, as processing images is a complex task. Many printers have the computing powers of a PC. In fact, some printers are capable of forming images in the memory before printing, and this makes the entire process much faster.
There are many types of printers you could choose from. Inkjet photo printers offer photo printing but are also capable of printing other material. Dedicated photo printers print only on photo paper, and professional photo printers are capable of giving large printouts. Photo resolutions of these are up to a maximum of 1,200 by 4,800 dpi. When you choose a printer, look for one that can print wallet-size as well as reasonably large pictures.
Printers use four colors, which are cyan, yellow, magenta, and black. Some photo printers also add light cyan and light magenta, and a few even offer red and green or red and blue. These additional colors add to the printer’s color range and are able to print fine changes in color as in skin tones or the colors of fields. Some printers are also able to print halftones well. If you are into black and white photography, consider one that offers you printing with black and gray inks. Many color printers use composite ink to give you black and white prints.