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It is no longer a question of when Digital Photography will be a factor in our lives, it is a reality. In just the last few years, incredible
technological breakthroughs have turned digital novelties in to serious photographic equipment, and turned office printers in to photo-quality print
making tools. Both are now cost-effective enough to allow most of us to at least dabble in it or even incorporate it in to our "educational
toolbox."
This segment, originally part of our inkjet printing and paper Advisor Booklet, will help you understand the basics of inkjet printers. It will also
give practical knowledge to enable you to make informed choices about what tools and materials you should acquire to make the most of your Digital
Photography experience.
Before we start, you need to remember one important thing: Digital is moving forward at an incredible rate and things are changing and quickly!
Printers, paper types, inks, etc. are different now then they were 6 months ago and they will change again 6 months from now. The questions you need
to ask, however, remain the same no matter how fast things change. Before you buy, always ask yourself these questions... What are my goals for
inkjet output? Will I be able to print in the size and format I want? How long has the printer Iım about to purchase been on the market? Also, for
the classroom, you want a printer with durability, photograph quality output, and the ability to be adapted to a continuous ink system.
There are many types of printers on the market, including color laser and dye sublimation, and all of them claim the ability to print photo-quality
pictures. We have found that inkjet printers offer the most flexibility and produce the best results without spending too much money.
An inkjet printer uses minute dots of different colored inks to produce an image. Most use one of two technologies achieve this. "Thermal" (bubble
jet) uses heat, and the slightly superior "Micropiezio" which uses vibrating electronic crystals. The smaller and closer together the droplets are
the better the detail. Thus, printer resolution* is measured in "Dots-per-inch" or "dpi." 360dpi is good for text-only drafts, 720dpi is perfect for
text documents and color illustrations like charts and graphs, and 1440dpi is considered the minimum resolution for quality 8x10" photographic output.
2880dpi and beyond offer even better output possibilities.
This is an important tip: Just because you have a printer that produces higher resolution than you need, does not mean that you ought to make prints
at a higher resolution than you need. To do so will only waste money invested in ink. Test your printer/paper combination thoroughly for maximum
resolution for your needs.
Inkjet printers use the Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, blacK color process (known collectively as "CMYK.") The old-fashioned three-color printers combines
cyan (C), magenta (M) and yellow (Y) inks to reproduce a fairly broad pallet of colors, but images from three-color printers tend to have weak
shadow and highlight areas. A four-color printer adds black (K) to the mix which allows for richer blacks but images tend to be over saturated with
blocked up shadows and pixelated highlights. Because of these limitations, three and four color inkjet printers are considered general-purpose
machines, good for text and illustrations (charts & graphs) but unsuited for photographic output.
Six-color printers add lighter shades of cyan and magenta (CcMmYK). When first introduced, these additions constituted a great leap forward in
inkjet imaging. Light cyan and magenta allow inkjet printing to reproduce near-continuous tones a fundamental requirement for photograph-quality
images.
There are three or four major companies offering photo-quality printers, but as of this article Epson is the only company producing inkjet printers
that meet our standards for quality, photographic output, flexibility and reliability. Quality output means sharp, high resolution detail, near
continuous tone reproductions, vibrant and accurate colors, good dynamic range, and boarderless printing for larger paper sizes.
*Note: Resolution is associated with both cameras and printers, and is used to describe the potential for detail and sharpness in a photo. To
get a high resolution image from your print, keep in mind that you must have quality and high resolution in your camera first.
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