Everybody wants to know about the correct inkjet cartridge for his or her printer, but what about printer paper? Inkjet and laser printers can print on a variety of surfaces, including photo paper, labels, business cards, stickers, and t-shirt transfers. One of the biggest advantages of laser printers is their ability to churn out quality prints on almost any paper. However, the same does not apply to inkjet printers. Although most of your inkjet printing probably involves standard white papers, when it comes to this medium, you may have more options than you realise.

Inkjet Printer Paper

Although standard printer paper can do the job as well, your printouts will probably be better if you use paper specifically made for inkjet printers. The quality of your printouts is affected by two major factors: brightness and absorption.

1. Brightness

When a type of paper is advertised as being brighter than average, it indicates that the surface of the paper is smoother than average. The smoothness of the page determines the amount of light reflected from its surface. This factor also determines how bright your images appear on the page. The brighter or smoother the printer paper is, the better your printout will appear.

2. Absorption

In this case, if the printer paper absorbs less ink, your document will definitely look better. As the paper absorbs ink, tiny dots on the page may spread outside their borders. This may cause the edges of text and images on the page to look fuzzy and soggy. To counteract this problem, quality printer papers are coated with a waxy substance that prevents the absorption of ink by the paper. A well-coated paper allows for more precise and smoother printing. In general, most of the printers on the market print at a higher resolution on coated paper than on standard paper.

Branded Paper – To Buy or Not to Buy

It’s no secret that the big names in printers, such as HP, Canon, and Epson, offer a complete line of inks and papers. Each company claims that you will get the best results when you use its products with its printers, and warns you to steer clear of products sold by other companies.

Generally speaking, they’re right. In the case of inkjet printers, especially, companies design printers, inks, and papers to work together to yield the best results. If you use third-party paper with your inkjet printer from a big-name manufacturer, the ink may spread too far into the paper before drying, causing inaccurate colours, lower print resolution, and a dull finish. Plus, it is likely that the prints will fade faster.
The choice, after all, lies with you. Printing great photos from an inkjet printer is a tall order, requiring a perfect match between the ink, paper, and printer to work together; and the companies don’t make it easy on the consumer’s pocket. You can reach the most economical solution through a little experimentation.

Alternatively, laser printers can print plain text documents or draft-quality graphics with equal ease, and you can stock up on your local office supply store’s bright white copy or laser paper to your heart’s content.

Getting Past the Jargon

To find out if the paper package on the shelf is right for your printer, simply read the fine print that usually lists out the compatible companies and models. Moreover, if you are interested in high-quality photo printing, you can generally see if a particular paper makes the grade.

For example, some papers may have unusual descriptions such as “swellable” or “cotton rag.” Swellable paper is designed for high-quality photo printing?the coated surface actually swells as it absorbs ink. Cotton rag is ideal for inkjets that use pigment-based inks; most low-cost inkjet printers, on the other hand, use dye-based ink, so you should steer clear of cotton rag in this instance.

High-quality paper also has a polymer coating?for both dye-based and pigment-based inks?that keeps the ink from spreading, and it protects the ink from fading over time. However, coated paper can take a number of hours to completely dry your prints. Better quality paper may also be advertised as acid-free and lignin-free; these indicate that your paper is more likely to give you the best image quality and the best overall life span.

Checklist

It is important to remember that most branded photo printer paper from corporate names, including well-known ones, is only suitable for printing at 1440 and 2880 DPI. Here is a simple checklist to help you when deciding the inkjet photo paper best suited to your needs.

1. Always check the DPI (Dots Per Inch) of the photo printer paper.

DPI is an indicator of how much ink the photo paper can absorb per inch on the page. Using low DPI photo paper for high-resolution printing will result in poor quality prints. Usually, if the seller does not advertise the DPI of its inkjet photo paper and card, then it is likely that it is very low and therefore a lower grade paper.

2. Check that the photo paper is instant dry.

Cheaper photo paper may not be designed to dry instantaneously and can result in colour running or smudging while the ink is soaking into the paper. Once again, if the seller does not advertise this feature, then it is likely that it is absent.

3. Decide the weight of inkjet photo paper you need.

Although the weight of photo paper and card vary, the most common weights are between 120gsm to 280gsm.

If you are printing in bulk, then 120gsm is usually sufficient and cost effective. If you are printing photographs at home, then 160gsm to 200gsm should suffice. Buy glossy printer paper if you want shiny pictures, and matt paper if shine is not an issue for you.

As a general rule, bigger the weight is, thicker the photo paper or card will be.

John Sollars is the managing director of Solar Electronics, which are both ink and pc peripheral suppliers based in Shropshire, UK. To access a comprehensive online shop of original and re-manufactured printer ink cartridges please visit http://www.stinkyinkshop.co.uk/acatalog/Paper.html or simply visit the Stinky Ink homepage at http://www.stinkyinkshop.co.uk

The technology of bill delivery has changed in the past few years which has resulted in large potential savings for Billers if they choose the correct Print Outsourcer to produce and send their bills. For example, with the introduction of electronic bill presentment and payment (EBPP) the overall costs of bill delivery is being dramatically reduced by customers accepting their bills online and choosing not accept a paper bill.

According to a CheckFree study performed in November of 2005, 56% of U.S. Online households are paying at least one bill online, up from 52% in June of 2004. Many of the bigger Billers have taken advantage of this trend and have brought their overall cost of bill delivery down by as much as 30%. The key to realizing substantial savings is asking the right questions. When selecting a Print Outsourcer it is critical to ask the following Ebill questions and investigate whether they have kept up with recent technology.

1. Do you provide Ebilling capabilities and what adoption rates can I expect? Adoption rates are the key to a successful cost savings Ebill program. Adoption rates can bring down the overall cost of your total billing program by up to 30%. The definition of adoption rates is the number of customers that request an electronic bill instead of a paper bill. If you have 10,000 customers and 2,000 of your customers request an electronic bill instead of a paper bill that means you have achieved a 20% adoption rate. A 20% adoption rate can equate to a 15% overall savings in your total bill distribution costs. For example, if you’re overall cost of printing and mailing 10,000 bills is $6,200, the potential cost savings for a 20% adoption rate would be $930 leaving your new overall cost at $5,270.

2. What methods do you use to achieve high adoption rates? The Print Outsourcer should be able to send you’re bills through the CheckFree Distribution Network. This means that your customers who pay their bills through their banks bill pay site or through the MyCheckFree.com will be able to see their bills in these pay sites. The Print Outsourcer should also provide a wide range of successful adoption programs which include: Bill stuffers, CSR scripts, positive and negative incentive programs, email and internet campaigns, etc.

3. How will you charge me for Ebill? Some Print Outsourcers may be willing to take on the risk of adoption rates. In other words, they may be willing to charge you “One Price” for all bills going out and set the “One Price” at a very low rate. For example, a Print Outsourcer may be willing to charge $.39 for every bill going out. The Print Outsourcer’s cost for printing, inserting, 2 envelopes, and postage would be close to the $.39 or maybe even a little higher. However, they will charge $.39 for every bill whether it’s an Ebill or a Paper bill. If the Print Outsourcer can send out 20% of the invoices electronically it brings down their overall costs so that they are still profitable. If the Print Outsourcer doesn’t perform and bring up adoption rates, they will not make much money. This helps you as a client receive a very low price for bill creation and delivery but also motivate the Print Outsourcer to perform so they can make a profit.

After you have satisfied yourself concerning the prowess of the Print Outsourcer concerning Ebill capabilities, it is still very important to assess the printing abilities of the printer. Although the art and science of printing has been around for many years, some Print Outsourcers have taken advantage of new technology to bring prices down to an all time low in Labor, Materials, and Postage. If you know the tricks you can participate in these cost savings with the Print Outsourcer. Labor cost reductions have been driven down by Intelligent and Selective Inserters. The newer inserters can dramatically reduce the labor cost associated with inserting the bills and stuffers into the envelopes.

Labor costs have also been driven down by self help customer care tools. If a Print Outsourcer can give their clients full visibility into the print process which includes seeing job status, viewing invoice output, self proofing of jobs, invoice seeding, etc., then the client demands less customer service from the Print Outsourcer. This brings labor costs down and gives more control to the client to solve their own issues. Material costs have also been reduced substantially by high speed color cut sheet printers. In addition, Printer Outsourcers who print their own forms tend to have a lower cost. Lastly, first class postage costs can be reduced to less than $.30 per piece by commingling.

For savvy Billers who want to save money through Print Outsourcing, these tips will help you choose the correct vendor and get the lowest cost for the best service.

Clint Waite is a billing industry expert with years of experience in business process outsourcing. He helps companies get the most from their billing solution and has a track record of decreasing costs through best billing practice implementations.

Best Practice Systems is your premier electronic billing partner. Learn how to achieve significant savings on your invoice processing costs by visiting http://www.bestpracticesystems.com

Photo printers these days are capable of producing some absolutely stunning digital photo prints that easily rival, and in some cases even surpass, those made by a photo lab. Since digital photography has put the final output of a digital photo in the hands of the photographer, you can make these kind of prints yourself right at home. Let’s discuss the ways to be sure to get the best photo output from your digital photo printer.

First of all, the initial responsibility for image quality resides with your digital camera. There must be enough resolution to make each photo sharp and clear, and for most photos up to 8 X 10 in size that will require about 4 – 6 megapixels. So be sure that your camera is turning out high quality images to work with before you even start printing.

The next step in producing outstanding digital photos is to edit them by hand in photo editing software before you print them out. Here is where you can make lots of beneficial adjustments depending on the capability of your photo editing program. You can crop out all the unnecessary parts of each image, adjust the color saturation and contrast, and much more. The more time you take here, the better your print will usually be. Doing all of this by hand is also very important as photos often have completely different editing needs from one to another so no one-size-fits-all solution can be applied to all of your photos to make them look their best.

Once you have the images edited its time to print them out, and here is where you will need a high quality photo printer for the very best output. Thankfully, there are many great inkjet printers on the market these days that are more than capable of making excellent prints, but to find the very best printers you should look for those that separate their color cartridges into individual units instead of combining them all together as most cheaper printers do. This lets the printer have more complete control over the printing process including printing a wider range and deeper saturation of colors than most normal printers are capable of.

Also consider the photo paper that you will be using and use a high quality paper, preferably the brand and type that is recommended by the manufacturer of your photo printer as this is usually the combination for the highest quality results.

As you can see, getting the very highest quality digital photo prints is not just about the printer itself, although it does play a large role in the overall output. So if you need to produce the very best digital photo images, follow the guidelines given above to help you achieve the best results.

Thad Pickering writes on many consumer related topics including digital photography. You can find the best photo printer and the best professional digital photo printer by visiting our Digital Photography website.