The old saying “a picture is worth a thousand words” was originally coined by Fred Barnard in reference to ads printed on the sides of mass transit vehicles. We’re all too familiar with the concept that without pictures we’d have to explain ourselves ad nauseam.
I think it goes without saying that whether one is printing diagrams for a report or printing pictures to hang on a wall, choosing the right printer for the job is an absolute necessity. Not only does one need to decide which printer will offer the right output, but which will perform the nicest and most economically.
This weekend was my chance to test drive some of the technologies at my disposal. I needed to print a handful of pictures to display on my walls and wanted to do it as conveniently as possible without sending them out. About a month ago I printed pictures at one of the local one hour places and ended up with a fair percentage I chose not to use simply because they didn’t look so great in the frames.
I’ve had good luck with my ink jet printer so I decided to fire it up first and try my luck with it. My own personal printer is a Canon Pixma which is designed for photo printing. From my experience with ink jet type printers, the best jobs are done with photographic paper and the printer set at the highest resolution.
After a few trials I was able to get the paper lined up and feeding properly. It cost me about three sheets of premium paper before the system was up and running properly. Even after the paper was installed properly I still had lines in the ink that I needed to fix. I easily fixed the lines by rubbing the nozzle with alcohol on a cotton swab.
My parents have a Kodak dedicated photo printer. All the supplies are proprietary to the printer and therefore I can’t swap out their paper for one that I would rather use. As soon as the printer was installed onto my computer I was printing perfect pictures. The quality of the image is impeccable; however, it took about a minute to create a 4″ X 6″ image. The end result was nearly perfect as well as indestructible.
My Leominster store uses a color laser printer for all of our in-house printing. While in Leominster over the weekend I decided to stop in and give it a whirl. I had my doubts but decided to try anyway. I brought with me a stack of full-size picture paper which I figured would have produced premium end results. Though we print brochures and other handouts with the laser, I wouldn’t suggest it for pictures. The final output was considerably grainy and not very picture like.
For printing pictures the Kodak dedicated printer is my first choice. I decided to take a ride to the electronics store and price the units and supplies. The Kodak printer my parents have is around $350.00 in stores. According to my basic calculations, the cost per page is around $0.95 per picture (not including the cost of the printer). I decided not to make the purchase.
My ink jet printer cost me under $100.00 and costs around $0.25 per picture. I decided to stick with ink jet for now. My reasons are quite simple. I’m able to print black and white documents as well as full color in one printer. Economically speaking, the dedicated photo printers haven’t come down in price enough to justify the purchase.
For all of my convenience printing needs I’m going to stick with my photo quality ink jet printer. Though the quality isn’t as good as the dedicated printer, the price is right. Moreover, it fits the bill for black print as well as anything color I have to do in short runs.
(Jeromy Patriquin is the President of Laptop & Computer Repair, Inc. located at 509 Main St. in Gardner. You can text him at (978) 413-2840 or call him directly at (978) 919-8059.)