To Print or Not to Print, that is the question (at home anyway)

To print or not to print that is the question

When it comes to the expense of driving to the local photo lab, retail outlet it is cheaper to print your photos at home but.............. the cost per photo printing at home isn't what is going to save you the money it is the cost of all the other items you pick up when you are in town waiting for your photos to be printed or if you have them printed instantly you really are not saving any money anyway.

There are some fantastic quality printers available at most large department stores and retail outlets but buyer beware, do not fall for the price. Often printers are "on sale" because they are being replaced with another new model which a few months from now will be "on sale" because it will be replaced by a newer model. The on-going, never ending downfall to technology is you can not keep up. 

While shopping for a printer first decide what you want your printer to do. 

• Is it just to print text, stories, newsletters at home 
  
• Is it for photocopying documents on a regular basis or would it be cheaper to have them copied at a local copy center
• Will you be needing a fax machine
• Will you be needing to scan documents, photos, etc...

If you are going to do a little bit of everything get what is called an All in One printer. Most are a 3-in-1 which copy, print and scan. Also available are 4-in-1 which are a little bit more money but for the average small home business well worth it they can include a fax machine. When it comes to a home office, space is usually at premium and the less you take up the better.

If you are primarily going to be using it for photos of friends and finally spend the few extra dollars and get a Photo Printer. Some of the most common and higher rated printers are made by names you can trust such as Canon, HP, Kodak, Epson. 

There are a lot of differences between the "good" printers and those of lesser quality but primarily look for the DPI rating. The DPI is Dots Per Square Inch, the higher the rating, the higher the numbers, ( 9600 x 2400, 4800 x 1200) the better. Also check the PPM. Page per minute is the number of pages which the appliance can reproduce usually rated from or compared to an average text document, photo, graph documents take longer to print due to their complexity. 

As well, usually a lot of the photo printers come with individual ink tanks which don't just include a tri-color cartridge and a black cartridge they include Cyan, Magenta, Black and Yellow, some event include different versions of these colors. Standard printers are two ink tanks, a few years ago the good inkjet photo printers had 4 cartridges and I have even seen some at department stores today with up to 8-9 cartridges. The average consumers knows the difference and in order to keep up with the leaders in the ink jet printing industry most manufacturers are now following suit and creating better, less expensive printers which are capable of doing more.

 Check back often as we will be reviewing printers as they are intruduced to the market.

In short, watch the DPI