Digital cameras have become very affordable, and inkjet printers with photo producing capabilities have followed suit. No longer do you have to rely on your local photo shop to develop rolls of film for your pictures. You have your own darkroom right at home – in the computer and your printer. The question is when it makes sense to spend the extra cash on photo quality ink and when you should stick with regular ink cartridges when producing your pictures.

EVERYDAY PRINTING Inkjet printers these days with regular ink cartridges have the ability to produce attractive photographs. These photos are great for projects at school, sharing with friends or even inserting them into invitations and greeting cards. For casual photo swapping and displays, regular ink is perfectly fine, but high definition vibrancy is not one of the regular ink's strong suits. You can improve upon the photo output from regular inkjet cartridges by using specialty papers created just for photographs.

SPECIAL PRINTING If you wish to have exceptional photographs and print them yourself, a photo ink cartridge is worth the splurge. Photo ink is best left for projects that you would normally take to a camera shop for developing. These could include photographs from weddings, a baby's birth, a first birthday, or any event that is extra special. If you want the photos to last for years without fading and have a crisp, highly defined quality, the photo ink cartridge is well worth it.

HOW THE PHOTO QUALITY INK ID DIFFERENT Most inkjet printers have a black cartridge as well as a separate tri-color cartridge that contains cyan, yellow, and magenta. For normal color print jobs, these tri-colors are mixed as it is sprayed onto the paper for particular hues as well as the black. Special photo ink cartridges hold not only black ink, but also lighter, specially formulated versions of the color ink.

When you want exceptional quality photos with distinct skin tones, less of a grainy look and vibrant colors, you would remove the regular black inkjet cartridge and replace it with the photo quality one. The reason why photos are more vibrant with this special cartridge is because you are no long dealing with the standard four color mix of black, cyan, magenta and yellow; instead, you are adding two additional colors that are lighter than the tri-color cartridge, which allow the printer to create a broader range of color mixes when the ink is sprayed onto the paper.

If you predominantly use your printer for photos, you should invest in photo quality ink cartridges. However, if you print documents with lots of text, you would quickly use up the black ink in the photo cartridge and have to replace it, regardless of whether or not the other colors in the cartridge are still full. The best solution is to keep the photo quality ink cartridge on hand for those picture printing times when you need outstanding, crisp quality. Otherwise, printing pictures with regular ink for everyday use is quite acceptable.


This was written by Printerinks.com, your home for printer inks and laser toner.