In the digital era in which we live, it becomes progressively easier to do things at home, while in earlier times you would have to go somewhere else to get them done. Among these things is printing your own photographs; digital cameras are quite common these days, and so naturally, technology to easily obtain prints of the pictures you took has been developed as well. With the right materials you can produce high quality images, worthy of a professional photo store, using your own printer. Among the factors that determine the quality of a printed image are printer resolution, paper quality printer settings and the type of ink cartridges used by the printer.

Photographs come out best when they have a high resolution. The print resolution of a printer is usually given in DPI, or dots per inch. Each image is composed of different coloured dots. The size of these dots – and therefore the number of dots per unit of measurement – is determined by the precision of the printer laser (or the size of the ink drops placed upon the paper, in the case of inkjet printers) and the quality of the paper; ink dots will spread (or ‘bleed’) out farther on lower quality paper. Naturally, photo paper is recommended for printing photographs. A printer does not necessarily have one fixed DPI, it depends on the settings as well.

But perhaps one of the most important factors in regulating the resolution of the final printed product is whether the printer uses separate ink cartridges and toners or a single cartridge system, in which both ink and toner are present. Toner (also called dry ink) is a special powder which is used to securely bind the ink to the paper and thus to greatly improve the quality of the image. Single cartridge systems can be found in laser printers, which are in themselves more precise than inkjet printers and therefore more suitable for printing photographs.

The reason why toner works best in a single cartridge system is because it melts when it is heated – by specialised parts of the printer – which is how it can bind tightly to the paper, and of course it functions better when the ink is simultaneously brought onto the paper. Through this cartridge system, the ink dots will stay right in their place and will not bleed which makes for a very accurate printing process and creates excellent photo prints. Another advantage of using a single cartridge system is that it is easier to replace the cartridges in your printer, because the toner is already included. Also, most printers nowadays use only a black cartridge and one with all three primary colours (yellow, magenta and cyan) integrated into it instead of four separate ones.

All in all it can be concluded that, for the best possible quality of your home-printed photographs, there are several features to pay attention to: your printer’s settings and resolution possibilities, the paper you use and above all, to have a laser printer which uses a single cartridge system. This system enhances the resolution of your pictures and enables you to create professional photo prints without leaving your house!

Ben Greenwood is writing on behalf of Cartridge World, specialists in Ink Cartridges

Ben Greenwood is writing on behalf of Cartridge World (http://www.cartridgeworld.co.uk), specialists in Ink Cartridges.

Author Bio: Ben Greenwood is writing on behalf of Cartridge World, specialists in Ink Cartridges

Category: Computers and Technology
Keywords: printer cartridges, toner cartridges, photo printing