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Friday, March 9, 2007

Choosing Your Photo Printer

NOTE: Fotodirt.com did not write nor edit this article (except maybe for some minor proofing). It's here as a service to you. Go to the site for categorized summaries and other unique content not available here.

By Carl Walker

Digital photography has truly made making photos simple and easy. Photo printers now are evolving in a similar way to give you great looking photo prints at affordable cost. To print a photo, the computer or PC is the interface. But recent photo printers have completely done away with going through PC for digital photo printing. Now you can send images directly from the camera to a printer.

These types of photo printers have built in slots where you can plug flash –memory cards directly. In another model, you connect the camera to the printer just like you connect it to your computer using a simple device. There are many types of photo printers let us see some of the important models.

Before looking at the various types and models of photo printers let us see how you go about selecting the right printer for your requirement. First thing to consider is the price – you can buy a reasonably good photo printer for under $100. However professional quality printers may cost over $400. Price is not the only consideration you also must keep in mind the costs of consumables like paper costs, ink and toner costs. These recurring costs may in the long run not economical if it overshoots the price of the printer itself!

Specialized photo printers take up more power and memory almost like your PC. As processing images needs good memory to speed up the printing tasks. So you have to look for adequate power and memory capacity. Many people still consider printer resolution as the main criteria in deciding which photo printer to buy. This is not always true, because a dye-sub printer at 300 dpi can give excellent results when compared to a resolution of 1400 dpi on an ink-jet printer.

In recent times there are many cheap color photo printers for you to choose from. It is not necessary that only the most expensive printer will give you the best results. Let us consider some entry level printer and then move towards high end printers. Liquid ink-jet printers represent today’s low cost entry level printer for personal and low volume color printing. These printers do a good job when it comes to printing photo realistic images on wide variety of papers. Color laser printers are also a good option as a photo printer. But their quality has still not matched the results from the cheap ink-jet printers. If you are very quality conscious and want high end image quality then look no further than dye-sublimation printers or simple dye-subs. These printers produce professional photo realistic images. Photo printers in a way have become part and parcel of everyday life, enabling even amateur photographers and the hobbyist to dabble in color printing and even editing quality photos. Get the photo printer that is least expensive and offers good quality and enjoy your photo memories!

For more information about photo printers, help and advice on cheap photo printing and much more, check out Photo-Printers-HQ.com

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