{"id":103943,"date":"2025-02-22T19:46:45","date_gmt":"2025-02-22T19:46:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/entertainment\/art\/the-subtle-art-of-printers\/"},"modified":"2025-02-22T19:46:45","modified_gmt":"2025-02-22T19:46:45","slug":"the-subtle-art-of-printers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=103943","title":{"rendered":"The Subtle Art of Printers"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n\n
\"The<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Understanding Printers…<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

Printers are an essential part
\nof any home or office, but with so many different models on the market, it can
\nbe tough to know which one is right for you. This time in my blog, we’ll
\ndiscuss the multitude of things that you need to consider when choosing a
\nprinter, as well as provide some practical tips for printing, selecting a
\nprinter, setting it up and maintaining it. Oh, and we also come to the
\nconclusion that mostly, all printers suck.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It\u2019s time we revisited
\nprinters, firstly, because we haven\u2019t looked at them in a while, and secondly,
\nbecause printers really do suck. Whether you are a binge printer or
\nrecreational printer, these bottomless money pits should come with a warning
\nlabel that they do nothing to assist your positive mental wellbeing. Yesterday,
\na 3 minute print job took almost 3-hours out of my already chaotic day.<\/span><\/p>\n

From ink stains on the carpet
\nto random settings, sticky touch screens and endless reams of paper strewn
\nacross the floor, those are just a few of the problems that printers bring into
\na household and none of this is because your kids decided to print something,
\nit\u2019s generally what happens after the self-update process has done its thing.
\nPrinters cannot be trusted, they constantly need adult supervision. \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Family use aside, if you are a
\nprofessional artist who regularly uses a printer to produce commercial quality
\nprints, there are things you really need to know before committing to any
\nparticular model or brand, but more than that, you need to be able to resolve
\nany issues that will pop up frequently, because from experience I can
\ncategorically say that printers are designed to make your life as difficult as
\npossible and I genuinely think that\u2019s the bar that printer manufacturers aspire
\nto meet. <\/span><\/p>\n

Forget the implementation of
\nartificial intelligence, it would be fantastic to find a printer with any level
\nof intelligence. Over the years I\u2019ve not had a great experience with more than
\na few of them as you can probably tell.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\"Will<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Will Work for Ink by Mark Taylor<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been using a printer at
\nhome since the early 1980s, my first printer used a roll of thermal paper and
\nwhen they discontinued the printer that I had been so impressed with on my
\nshiny new-fangled 8-bit home computer, I bought up the entire local stock of
\nthermal rolls. I still have two unopened in a shrink-wrapped box in the attic
\nbut the printer has sadly long gone. I did see one pop up on eBay last week and
\nhad to show restraint because I know I have a problem with collecting old
\nstuff. <\/span><\/p>\n

For less than fifty bucks and
\nwith no need to ever buy ink, that little thermal printer was the best computer-y
\nthing I ever owned. The print quality was awful, it was really slow, it made
\nabout the same level of noise that a jet engine would make on take off, and it
\nonly printed across the four inches of the thermal roll and yet, it was still
\nthe greatest printer I have ever had the joy of using because mostly, it just
\nworked and I have never to this day found another one that worked quite so
\nwell.<\/span><\/p>\n

It only had two settings,
\neither on or off and they operated by taking out the mains plug or inserting it.
\nThere were no complicated buttons, just one about the size of a finger nail
\nused to feed the new roll of paper and it all plugged directly into a port at
\nthe back of the computer via a ribbon cable. <\/span><\/p>\n

The connection was precarious,
\nit would disconnect if you wobbled the table but nothing more than a blob of
\nBlue Tack was required to stabilise it. Sure it had it\u2019s nuances, but if you
\ngave me a printer today and told me that all I would need to do to make it work
\nhow I want it to work, would be to add a blob of the sticky blue office supply,
\nwell I think I would bite your hand off.<\/span><\/p>\n

Today, I use multiple
\nprinters, dye-sublimation, laser, I even own a dot matrix because it\u2019s the
\ncheapest way of printing out that casual everyday stuff that doesn\u2019t need a
\nhigh DPI count or even colour, and I couldn\u2019t even begin to tell you how much I
\nspend on consumables each year, but let\u2019s say it\u2019s roughly about the GDP of a
\ncountry according to my bank balance. <\/span><\/p>\n

I still use a thermal printer
\ntoday, it\u2019s nowhere near as as good as the one I owned back in the 1980s, even
\nif I do look back through rose tinted glasses but it is fantastic at printing
\naddress labels and receipts. I can print out exactly 200 receipts from one
\ncheap roll of thermal paper after working out the math that gave me the optimum
\nfont size to page yield. It\u2019s 11 point if you\u2019re wondering. The downside, they
\nhaven\u2019t figured out networking for that either, it uses Bluetooth so that\u2019s
\njust fun, please read fun, with the sarcasm it deserves. <\/span><\/p>\n

Each of the printers I use
\ntoday has to meet the standard of having the ability to produce commercial
\nquality archival prints or serve another purpose that means that I\u2019m not over
\npaying for anything I print out. The printers range from shelf friendly, entry
\nlevel, \u00a0<\/span>all the way up to it didn\u2019t look quite
\nas big in the pictures. But here\u2019s the thing, they all suck, and some more than
\nothers.<\/span><\/p>\n

I probably need to explain why
\nthat is, it\u2019s certainly not the quality of the prints they produce, even the
\ndot matrix produces pin sharp high contrast text that looks like it could have
\ncome off a laser printer. The cheap inkjet I use to print off those e-tickets
\nor to send a good old fashioned complaint letter to the council, who never read
\nemails, even that is a quantum leap forward from a high-end printer I owned
\nabout a decade ago. I\u2019m regularly impressed at the range of materials I can
\nthrow at them, except the dot matrix which is a bit fussy, but they all suck
\nfor one reason alone, they\u2019re junky money pits that only work when they feel
\nlike it and you can find them. <\/span><\/p>\n

Connect them to Wi-Fi and it\u2019s
\na game of where\u2019s Waldo when attempting to find them on the network but the
\nprint quality, I have no complaints in that department. The issue is that to
\nget them to print anything from anything that\u2019s not physically and directly
\nconnected, is quite frankly, painful at times. No printer found, no printer
\nfound, oh, there it is.<\/span><\/p>\n

There\u2019s something else too,
\nthey insist on telling me that they\u2019re out of ink when there\u2019s still half a
\ntank remaining, so I pretend to change the ink cartridges by taking them out
\nand putting them back in, and the faded lines are once again complete and the
\ntanks continue to work for about the same number of prints that the first half
\nof the tank yielded. <\/span><\/p>\n

I only knew for certain to do
\nthis when I had to install a clear plastic third party ink tank when global
\nsupplies of original ink cartridges were delayed during the pandemic. The
\noriginal tanks are never clear so you have no way of knowing how much ink is
\nleft because you rely on an on screen infographic that always lets you know
\nthat you are about to run out of Cyan.<\/span><\/p>\n

Just to be clear, using the
\nthird party ink was eye opening in that it told me something that I had been
\nconvinced was happening for many years yet could never prove, which was that
\nthe ink remaining indicator on that tiny screen, lies. In fact it lies so much
\nI wouldn\u2019t be surprised if it was hiding classified documents in the print
\nqueue and demanding a mistrial when I complain.<\/span><\/p>\n

I was surprised, as I often am
\nwhen things look like a bargain and work, at just how good the yield was from
\nthe third-party ink cartridges and the text was nice and crisp. These were
\ncertainly better than the alternative brand ones I had used before, they were
\nrecognised by the printer and the colours were actually brighter than the
\noriginals, although I hadn\u2019t opted for the cheapest they were still 60% less expensive
\nthan original tanks.<\/span><\/p>\n

My choice to use an
\nalternative was a one off in a supply crisis. I have to guarantee the print
\nquality of my work so I tend to stick to original inks, and this really makes
\nsense when you are using high-end premium papers, but the results from the
\nreplacements were really good and would be more than good enough if I were just
\nprinting text or using the printer for regular things.<\/span><\/p>\n

I wouldn\u2019t necessarily trust
\nthird-party inks inside my wide format printers when longevity of the print
\nalong with vibrancy and resolution is imperative, and especially when the cost
\nof a wide format printer means that it\u2019s not easy to just replace. There\u2019s also
\nlittle point in using a wide format printer for general documents, that would
\nbe throwing away money needlessly and they\u2019re much slower at printing in any
\ncase. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\"Japanese<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Sakura Serenity by Mark Taylor<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

For day to day stuff like
\nprinting out any emails that you need to keep a paper copy of, I just use a
\nbudget printer that costs about the same as the inks that go inside it. It
\nmakes more sense to go with third-party ink for this kind of thing because if
\nthe printer does fail, it\u2019s still cheaper overall even when it fails. <\/span><\/p>\n

Fail it will eventually. Sadly,
\nthere is no such thing as a cheap printer that will last and arguably, there\u2019s
\nno such thing as an expensive printer that lasts either, but this really does
\ndrill home the message that cheap printers are disposable, and that together
\nwith the cost of inks, I think this is their greatest problem.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now I\u2019m sure someone will
\npoint out the pitfalls of using a third-party ink and I think I\u2019m well aware of
\nthe arguments.\u00a0 <\/span>They can potentially
\ndamage the printer, reduce its overall life, put extra strain on the print
\nhead, consume more ink, produce washed out prints, you could print out an
\nentire list of negatives with 3rd<\/sup> party ink depending on who you
\nspeak to. <\/span><\/p>\n

In my experience sticking to
\noriginal ink is something to consider if you use an expensive printer
\nespecially if it\u2019s still under warranty, but a sub-hundred buck printer used
\nfor printing letters, labels, and emails, it\u2019s never made any difference even
\nwhen I compare the results with my more expensive printers. Some of these
\nalternatives do promise similar levels of longevity of prints to those offered
\nby the original manufacturer, but can you trust them with commercial work, I\u2019m
\nstill on the fence about that.<\/span><\/p>\n

You can buy premium
\nthird-party inks that are genuinely better than the original versions, usually
\nthese are for specialist use and in some cases these can cost more than the
\noriginals. These might be better than the original inks for certain jobs but
\nit\u2019s always best to carry out some research, I do use some of these for some of
\nmy special edition works, and I have a printer that is solely used for printing
\nwith food grade edible ink, and everything used for producing food grade prints
\nis kept separate to my other kit. <\/span><\/p>\n

I did say that there was one
\nreason that printers were junky money pits but that\u2019s unfair. There are plenty
\nof reasons that contribute to their reputation for being generally bad. Printer
\nmanufacturers spend a lot of money on research and development, but clearly
\nnowhere near enough when it comes to making sure their printers connect to a Wi-Fi
\nnetwork. <\/span><\/p>\n

Printers almost always have a
\nlimited life, and support for the drivers needed for the computer to operate
\nthe printer generally goes away when new printer models arrive, and when the
\ndrivers are produced they\u2019re rarely updated. <\/span><\/p>\n

Most modern printers include a
\ntouch screen but it\u2019s not clear from the picture on the box how small your
\nfingers need to be to actually touch it, let alone how great your eyes need to
\nbe to view the user interface that won an interface of the year award in 1986.
\nBut hey, it\u2019s smart enough to also allow me to print out colouring pages but
\nfor some reason it still needs a cyan tank installed even though it\u2019s only
\nprinting in black. What is it with cyan ink.<\/span><\/p>\n

For those who really know the
\nultimate test for any electrical device is whether or not it runs Doom. I can
\nconfirm that in some cases you can run Doom on a printer screen but it\u2019s not as
\ngood as Doom running on say, a banana because a banana has better controls.<\/span><\/p>\n

When it comes to customer
\nsupport, well, they all mostly fail in this area too. In all my years of
\nprinting I have come across one manufacturer who has excelled in providing a
\nreally bad customer experience, but I have found plenty of others who have come
\nreally close. I used to spend a lot of money with this manufacturer, buying
\nconsumables, even some of the other technologies they sold, you could say I was
\neven a fan, but the phrase, \u2018 I used to\u2019 might give you an idea where I\u2019m
\nheading with this.<\/span><\/p>\n

When I had the misfortune to
\nthink that customer service meant that there was at least some level of support
\non the end of the phone, I was corrected by a really cheerful support desk operator
\nwho explained very abruptly and rather dismissively that the \u00a31000 (UK) printer
\nI purchased 12-months and one day ago was no longer in warranty and my best
\ncourse of action would be to buy a new one. No serviceable parts, or certainly
\nnone we\u2019re telling you about, but here\u2019s a link to our new product range. At
\nleast the operator was a human and not a bot telling me the bad news I guess.
\nYou would expect service desk support to get better as you level up and pay
\nmore, but that\u2019s not my experience. <\/span><\/p>\n

On balance, my experience with
\nsome other manufacturers has been like chalk and cheese, a 3-year old out of
\nwarranty printer from another manufacturer was replaced with a refurbished
\nmodel for the cost of postage which was so much better than simply throwing the
\nold one away, and they even provided me with a new set of test inks. <\/span><\/p>\n

Of course your individual
\nmilage with any printer manufacturer will vary, some people might have better
\nluck than I did with the company who epically wronged me, but I won\u2019t be going
\nback to them anytime soon which is a shame because the print quality was really
\ngood. Apparently, Cannon say they can, experience tells me they can\u2019t.<\/span><\/p>\n

At the lower end of the
\nprinter market, we can forgive some of these issues with modern-day printers.
\nMostly, the manufacturers are selling the devices as loss leaders making any
\nprofit in the future from the continuous sale of original inks. <\/span><\/p>\n

If you think about the
\ncomplexity of something that is asked to faithfully print out a photograph by
\nfiring lots of dots of ink at the paper in the right place and with the right
\ncolour, and to make sure that device works across a range of devices that might
\nall be configured differently, it shouldn\u2019t be possible for any device to be
\nable to do this at under fifty bucks, yet visit any number of box stores and
\nthere will be rows upon rows of sub fifty and sub one hundred buck printers,
\nall capable of creating photographs and printing out school projects or even
\nfulfilling the printing needs of a small business and they all mostly work
\nacross almost every computer or mobile format. <\/span><\/p>\n

At the higher end of the printer
\neco-system, we begin to see the real bells and whistles that originated through
\nall of that R&D the manufacturers tell us is so expensive for them to do.
\nBetter screens, more features, more responsive to accepting different paper
\ntypes, more expensive ink tanks is usually a commonly shared downside, but no
\nmatter how much you pay, printer manufacturers still need to figure out
\nnetworking if you have anything more than a laptop connected to your router. <\/span><\/p>\n

The higher end printers do
\ncost more but generally they will produce much better results. Most will almost
\nalways yield more pages per refill, and most of them will handle most of the
\njobs and paper types that we throw at them without too many major complaints,
\nthey will all of course complain about anything to do with wireless networks.
\nThat said, the price you pay is no guarantee that the printer will consistently
\ndo what it says on the box, these are printers after all and well, printers
\nsuck however much you pay.<\/span><\/p>\n

At the budget friendly end of
\nthe market, we should probably start thinking of them not as printers, but as
\nlive services, a bit like the cable box or streaming device. We shouldn\u2019t be
\noverly concerned by the device so long as it produces what you need, it\u2019s the
\noverlaid service that we pay for. <\/span><\/p>\n

Live Services, the two dreaded
\nwords that have become synonymous with voluntarily signing up to hand our money
\nover to the cyber-highwayman of the modern day. No matter how often we say we dislike
\nlive services and subscriptions, we always seem to be at the ready when it
\ncomes to signing up to them. <\/span><\/p>\n

The manufacturers offer a
\nsubscription for ink that usually includes the printer communicating with the
\nmanufacturer and reporting back on the number of print jobs carried out, along
\nwith a bunch of other metrics that might or might not be identified in the end
\nuser licence agreement that none of us read. I find it funny how the printers
\ninternet connection works just fine when it comes to reporting back and taking
\nmoney off us.<\/span><\/p>\n

The device itself is almost
\nirrelevant at the lower end of the market, it\u2019s a subsidised machine that is
\nlittle more than a gateway to handing over a regular supply of cash. The
\nbenefit we get from this is that it will print out most of the things an
\naverage family might send its way together with the promise of new inks being
\ndelivered just in time for the last page of the current tank to be printed out.
\nIt\u2019s almost always exactly the 50th<\/sup> page on an average 50 page per month
\nplan. <\/span><\/p>\n

You pay for these dreadful
\n\u2018live services\u2019 depending on the number of pages you need to print over the course
\nof a month, yet my suspicion is that regardless of the money you pay, you will
\nget the same volume of ink as someone paying slightly more, you just won\u2019t be
\nable to use it.<\/span><\/p>\n

I recently took an allegedly
\nempty subscription ink tank apart and there was still plenty of ink inside, so
\nmy theory is that the remaining ink which will usually be thrown away is locked
\nbehind a paywall and the cartridge stops working once you have used up your
\npre-paid metered dose of ink or reached the monthly page count. If that is the
\nnorm, from both a cost of living perspective and from an environmental
\nperspective, I can\u2019t say that I would be happy about that if I was a subscriber.
\nTo be fair, it\u2019s not just printers, car manufacturers have been known to lock
\nthe built in heated seat behind a pay wall. <\/span><\/p>\n

I think what we can take away
\nfrom this is that the printer industry is rapidly moving towards becoming a
\nlive service industry as users transition away from printing in general. Whichever
\nway they go, I would expect customers to be more attuned to environmental
\nissues, and cost is always a consideration. Mostly, I think people just want
\neconomy and for the devices not to suck quite so much as they do.<\/span><\/p>\n

I think we can forget ever
\nfinding the unicorn that is the perfect printer, it doesn\u2019t exist today and I\u2019m
\nnot convinced it will exist tomorrow. For me, I would rather pay more upfront
\nfor a quality printer that delivers quality results that still gives me the
\nchoice between using original inks and third party tanks. Oh, and I would love
\nit to connect to my Wi-Fi network without it delivering a message of impending
\ndoom, telling me to install yet another cyan tank in order to proceed or that
\nthe printer couldn\u2019t be found on the network. <\/span><\/p>\n

The current model of printer
\nmonetisation seems to be working for the manufacturers for now so I\u2019m guessing there\u2019s
\nno urgency for the industry to really shake things up, but it does need shaking
\nup. Some manufacturers such as Epson are putting their weight behind refillable
\neco-tanks, and I have to say that this is possibly the best thing we have seen
\nfrom the print industry for years. <\/span><\/p>\n

We need to see more innovation
\nlike this, and less innovation around the bells and whistles that can be
\nalternatively provided through an app on our smartphone. I\u2019m not interested in
\na printer that can print colouring pages directly from the smart screen, I need
\nit to connect and print whatever I send to it, and if it could do it a little
\nmore quietly, that would be a welcome bonus. <\/span><\/p>\n

Those are the features that
\nreally matter. I would love to see the real numbers behind the add-on services
\nthat connect you online just to give you access to quick templates. I have
\nnever had a cause to use any of these extra services that come packaged within
\nthe printers settings, if there is a way to turn them off, that\u2019s something I
\nalways do and I think most people are the same, we just don\u2019t need the extra bloat
\nwithin an already difficult to use user interface.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\"oh<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Oh Crop by Mark Taylor<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s easier than ever to buy a
\nprinter today, assuming you can find the one you want in stock. I remember a
\ntime when a printer was specific to the device you were using it on back in the
\ndays of 8-bit home computers, but the development of standards such as USB and
\nWi-Fi mean that we no longer have to rely on additional interfaces or being
\nreliant on having a specific port available on the computer and if we can\u2019t
\nfind the exact printer we would like, we can choose another in the knowledge
\nthat at least on some level, it will work. <\/span><\/p>\n

The challenge we have today is
\nthat we have no way of knowing what the printers are really capable of or how
\nthey will perform until we take them home and plug them in. At that point you
\nmight already be committed to paying an ongoing subscription for ink with no
\npossibility of returning the unit unless it develops a fault in the warranty
\nperiod. <\/span><\/p>\n

If you visit a physical brick
\nand mortar store the printers will usually be stacked in boxes on shelves with
\nat best, a demo unit on display that\u2019s not connected to anything. It might not
\neven have any components inside, the display units are often only a visual
\nqueue that shows you what you are buying but they rarely demonstrate what they\u2019re
\n\u00a0<\/span>capable of. <\/span><\/p>\n

In the past year or so I have
\nonly ever stumbled across one retailer who had working units on display, and
\none more that had sample prints in a folder next to each printer. That should
\nat least be a thing that becomes the minimum standard we should expect when
\nmaking the kind of commitment that buying a printer needs. I\u2019m sure that would
\ndrive more people back to physical stores rather than buying online, although
\npricing would need to be comparable which I guess could be an issue.<\/span><\/p>\n

Other than reading online
\nreviews which in this day and age aren\u2019t something you should really be hanging
\nyour coattails from, there are very few reliable sources of truth that beat a
\npath through the hype from the manufacturers. If you are served by a sales
\nperson working for commission, there\u2019s really no single source of independent
\nand completely unbiased truth that you can rely on and the industry is awash
\nwith affiliate marketers who get paid if you click on the links from reviews or
\nYouTube videos. <\/span><\/p>\n

There are thankfully, some
\ngood sources of information to be found online, some of the industry websites
\nthat focus on graphic design carry reviews that are often much more honest than
\nthe sites with some level of manufacturer sponsorship or link. A search through
\nTwitter will usually highlight people who are reaching out to the manufacturers
\nfor support but what you are likely to find when you find these messages is
\nthat the manufacturers hide any responses. Probably another good indication
\nthat you should avoid that particular manufacturer.<\/span><\/p>\n

There are specialist printer
\nretailers although many of them have migrated to online only businesses over
\nthe past few years but these tend to be much better at signposting you someway towards
\nthe right device but often, these retailers are tied to specific brands and the
\ncosts tend to be much closer to retail than some of the discounted models you
\nwill find elsewhere online.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you buy a printer online,
\nyou need to be careful that you are not buying last years model, or a model that
\nwas manufactured even longer ago than that. While I was looking through Amazon
\nthis week I found nine out of ten models on sale had now been superseded with
\nnewer models, and the discounts didn\u2019t really take this into account, two cost
\nmore than the manufacturers recommended retail price. I had better luck finding
\nthe latest models directly from the manufacturers websites, but finding
\nsomewhere with stock is another challenge and some were only available on a
\nwaiting list.<\/span><\/p>\n

Out of all of the printers I
\nlooked at my choices dwindled down to a couple of older models for the same
\nprice as the latest versions, or heavily discounted printers that had long
\nsince become unsupported by the manufacturers and looking through online forums
\nand discussions, it seemed as if all of them had some kind of hot topic
\ndiscussion point which would make you nervous about making a commitment. <\/span><\/p>\n

There were a couple of new
\nmodels that were in stock but they were at the higher end of what I would think
\nwould be most regular people\u2019s budget, although there were a few services
\noffering rentals, inevitably the overall cost of those devices was higher than
\nbuying outright. <\/span><\/p>\n

Rentals might be more cost
\neffective once you factor in depreciation, service and future replacement costs
\nbut the ongoing cost might be prohibitive if you just need an occasional print
\nor you\u2019re not using it in a commercial environment.\u00a0 <\/span>I rented a huge dye-sublimation printer for
\n6-months several years ago when I placed some of my work with a retail chain,
\nand that worked out much cheaper than outsourcing the work.<\/span><\/p>\n

Today, I tend to outsource
\nmost of my print jobs other than special editions and local sales because printing
\ndoes take up a lot of time which could be spent doing higher value things like
\ncreating work or completing commissions. Generally when you print your own
\ncreations, buyers will expect a framing and matting service which makes for a nice
\nupsell opportunity but again, the time needed to do this has to be taken into
\naccount. \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

During the same, not very
\nscientific research, I also checked the stock at a local supermarket who had
\nbeen advertising a deal for an everyday, all in one inkjet printer, but once
\nagain, the printer is now old stock and a newer model is available, if you can
\nfind it in stock. I had a dye-sublimation printer on back order for over 12
\nmonths during the pandemic, in the end the company reached out to cancel the
\norder because they couldn\u2019t guarantee the supply chain. <\/span><\/p>\n

The supermarket were offering
\na steep discount over the original recommended retail price but I was able to
\nfind the same printer from other retailers for a similar price, albeit some
\nretailers also added on the cost of shipping, there were others who were
\noffering an extra set of inks.<\/span><\/p>\n

It’s also worth bearing in
\nmind that at these very low price points, there will be nothing available that
\ncould do anything more than light duties, and you would need something at a
\nmuch higher price point to consider using it to produce commercial quality art
\nprints. Ideally it would need to also be a wide format printer too, preferably
\none that uses dye-sublimation, two features which you are unlikely to find in
\nthe middle aisle of Aldi next to the discounted arc welder.<\/span><\/p>\n

Buying a printer is very much
\na case of buyer beware. That sub fifty buck printer is almost certainly not
\ngoing to provide you with the commercial grade prints that you might want the
\nprinter for, and it will devour ink by the barrel if you use it for anything
\nother than light duties compared to some of the more premium offerings. <\/span><\/p>\n

Remember, at really low price
\nlevels it\u2019s a reasonable assumption to make that the manufacturer is only
\ncharging you for the components and the logistics of shipping it. Ink and live
\nservices are where it\u2019s at, that\u2019s how printer manufacturers make their money.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\"Two<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Two Way Pager by Mark Taylor<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

There are some manufacturers
\nwho promise greater page yields while focussing on low running costs but you do
\nhave to compare these running costs against what you might actually use the
\nprinter for. Mostly, their yields per set of inks are based on a relatively
\nsmall percentage of the paper being covered when compared to real life use, in
\ntests the coverage is around 5% of the paper. The yields are calculated in a
\nlab in ideal conditions, and the images will have been curated specifically for
\nthe test using special test patterns but it appears in some cases that
\nsomething might be slightly off with the final reports.<\/span><\/p>\n

There have been some alleged
\ncases of manufacturers cheating the ISO requirements when manufacturing and
\ntesting printers. In one study, researchers found that some manufacturers were
\nusing different test pages and settings than had been specified in the ISO
\nstandard (International Organization for Standardization). This resulted in the
\nprinters appearing to meet the requirements when they were actually nowhere
\nclose.<\/span><\/p>\n

The ISO has taken steps to
\naddress the problem of cheating. In 2017, they updated the ISO 12646 standard
\nto make it more difficult for manufacturers to cheat. However, there is still
\nsome research based evidence that cheating continues to occur.<\/span><\/p>\n

While there are standards that
\nprinter manufacturers should meet, the results might not be anywhere near
\nindicative of real world use. This could potentially be another situation
\nthat\u2019s more familiar to diesel car drivers where vehicle manufacturers had been
\nfound and admitted to using cheat devices to bypass the emissions test. <\/span><\/p>\n

So, whilst research has
\ndemonstrated that printer manufacturers have been allegedly doing something
\nsimilar, we haven\u2019t seen much, if anything around legal actions against an
\nindustry that signs up to what is essentially a voluntary set of standards. <\/span><\/p>\n

This makes it really hard to
\nmake a balanced decision because some tests might show lower yields yet still
\nbe more economical. I can just imagine the class action adverts that might
\nspring up in the future, did you or anyone you know own a printer between 1989 and
\n2023, you might be owed millions for overpaying on ink.<\/span><\/p>\n

Selling hardware in the IT
\nindustry isn\u2019t the sole source of income resellers will be relying on, their
\noverhead is often high as is the cost of storing unsold kit, and the profit
\nmargins for hardware are often very low. The IT industry tends to make any
\nprofit they do make from offering warranties and service wraps, and live
\nservices offered directly by the printer manufacturers will be diminishing the
\nIT retailers profits even further making it less profitable for them to keep a
\nstock of the most up to date printers or carry a full range of inks.<\/span><\/p>\n

So the answer is to figure out
\nexactly what you want to do with the printer before you begin to start
\nshopping. It could very well be a false economy to pay so little for the
\nprinter if you then need to feed it with ink constantly, but it may be overkill
\nto pay premium prices if all you need the printer for is the occasional print where
\nyou might be happy to pay only a few pounds\/dollars each month.<\/span><\/p>\n

Maybe, and more importantly in
\nthe first instance is working out your budget, both now and by taking into
\naccount how much you will be paying for consumables. The pay to print model
\nwhich we know is little more than a subscription to a live service, can sometimes
\nfeel like a shakedown that would make the mafia proud despite the offers
\npresented at first glance.<\/span><\/p>\n

Most manufacturers will have a
\nrange of subscription options from light use to heavy duty printing but you
\nneed to consider the options carefully, especially when page yields advertised
\nare often only representative of covering a small surface area of the paper. <\/span><\/p>\n

This can make a subscription
\nseem like great value, but in real terms use, you could run out of ink very
\nquickly and end up reordering your next supply early if your plan is geared to
\ngeneral home or light office printing and you are using it instead to create
\nprints of your work. <\/span><\/p>\n

If you stop buying the ink or
\nsubscribing to the service, in some cases the printer will refuse to work, just
\nas we used to see with mobile phones which had been locked to a single cell
\ncarrier. In the UK and EU, the practice of locking down phones to a single
\noperator was outlawed some time ago and any contract phone today has to be
\nsupplied unlocked. The same is not true for printer manufacturers, they can
\nhold you to ransom if you pick the wrong scheme. Remember, you\u2019re really buying
\na service rather than a printer in this instance.<\/span><\/p>\n

You also need to consider how
\nmuch you care for your time. As I said earlier, some manufacturers are better
\nat updating firmware and drivers, Brother are excellent and my six year old
\nBrother which I use for everyday stuff is still being updated, almost too often.
\n\u00a0<\/span>Others that I have owned even for a
\nshort time have stopped receiving updates to either the drivers, printer
\nsoftware or firmware, rendering them pretty much redundant and certainly not
\nsecure enough to sit on my network. <\/span><\/p>\n

If new drivers are released and
\nfirmware is updated, the theory is that it is supposed to be a hassle free
\nexperience, but it\u2019s usually not. Brother is the exception here, but others
\noften require me to go and search for updates and manually install them. <\/span><\/p>\n

There are a few manufacturers
\nwho do keep everything updated for extended periods but you are only likely to
\nfind out if they do when you start using the printer over an extended period or
\nyou do some research and take a look online at any complaints people have. I
\nusually find Reddit a great source of information, if there\u2019s a sub-reddit for
\nthe printer, it\u2019s usually because people have an opinion. That said, Reddit are
\nslightly going off track at the moment in what I am calling their Elon moment
\nof monetising the source of a lot of their traffic. That\u2019s maybe another blog
\nfor another time.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you do find yourself
\nscouring the internet for new firmware and drivers, there\u2019s a risk that printer
\nmanufacturers websites could be spoofed and the firmware could contain malware
\nand viruses, so you have to be particularly vigilant when checking websites to
\nvalidate the authenticity of both the site and the files you are asked to
\ndownload. <\/span><\/p>\n

In my experience, printer
\nsecurity isn\u2019t generally at the top of everyone\u2019s mind when updating a printer,
\nbut if you imagine all of the information that you are likely to send through
\nto the printer, it\u2019s fair to say that there could be a lot of very personal
\ninformation such as bank accounts, scans of passports, even lists of accounts
\nand passwords, so the last thing you need is a malicious driver update
\ncapturing any of that information and sending it across the internet
\nunencrypted or someone using the wireless functionality of your printer to jump
\non to your wireless network. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\"laser<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Laser Disc by Mark Taylor<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

In my professional experience,
\nprinter drivers and printer Wi-Fi encryption are almost never a dominant
\nthought that will sway a buyer away from one printer to another. I think for
\nthe most part, the public don\u2019t really pay that much attention to the issue and
\nif they are aware of it, the reality of someone hijacking your print queue is
\nusually met with something along the lines of, who else would want to see my
\nkids homework print outs. It\u2019s not the prints that are the target, it\u2019s the
\nnetwork that the printer has joined.<\/span><\/p>\n

Although rare, it is also
\npossible for wireless printers to become a stepping stone for bad player to
\ngain unauthorised access to the rest of your wireless network and the devices
\non it. Here\u2019s a quick run through of what you should be mindful of when setting
\nup wireless printing.<\/span><\/p>\n

1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span>Change the default settings that come shipped
\nwith the printer, most of them will share a default username and password, it\u2019s
\nimperative that both of these are changed from the outset and if you can change
\nthe username, change it to something that doesn\u2019t indicate the model of the
\nprinter, even better, change it to something that doesn’t identify as a
\nparticular device. You should do this with everything that sits on your
\nnetwork.<\/span><\/p>\n

2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span>Never leave any electronic equipment,
\nespecially wireless routers in a position where they can be seen from the
\noutside. I walk past one particular house everyday and can see the home owners
\nwireless router on the windowsill, complete with all of the details that I
\nwould need to access the network if I were a bad player and because it\u2019s in
\nsuch a prominent position, that wireless signal is delivering a much better
\nsignal across the street than it\u2019s delivering in the lounge!<\/span><\/p>\n

3.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span>If there is a firmware update, don\u2019t put off
\ninstalling it. These are generally issued to address the most recent security
\nvulnerabilities and they often make the printing experience better and in some
\ncases more efficient.<\/span><\/p>\n

4.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span>Make sure your Wi-Fi network is using
\nappropriate security, use a strong unique password and good encryption such as
\nWPA2 or WPA3. <\/span><\/p>\n

5.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span>Use a firewall, this can either be a software
\nfirewall such as those that usually come with your anti-virus package, or it
\ncan be a hardware firewall although those will be more likely on corporate
\nenterprise grade networks.<\/span><\/p>\n

6.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span>You might have purchased the printer for its
\nbells and whistles, consider turning off any of the bundled services that you
\ndon\u2019t use as each one widens the attack surface for bad players to target and
\nthird-party services available on your printer could be harvesting data.<\/span><\/p>\n

7.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span>If your printer offers encryption or other
\nsecurity features, use them.<\/span><\/p>\n

8.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span>Consider placing your printer on a different
\nnetwork. This might make it more problematic to print from mobile devices but
\nyou could look into the possibility of adding in a second router in Bridge mode
\nand setting up a separate wireless network that has no sensitive devices on it.
\nSetting a separate network up in the first place will require some networking
\nknowledge but there are plenty of online tutorials if you think that this is
\nsomething that you want to do.<\/span><\/p>\n

As I said earlier, bad players
\nattacking a network via the wireless printer is rare, but that doesn\u2019t mean
\nthat it can\u2019t or won\u2019t happen. It\u2019s more likely in a corporate setting and it\u2019s
\nworth being pragmatic about these things. You need to be aware of the risks but
\nequally, a hacker isn\u2019t going to see your network pop up on some screen the
\nsecond its powered on. <\/span><\/p>\n

Hackers will usually be reliant
\non the hooky copy of Photoshop you downloaded from a dodgy website or the hooky
\ncopy of Office that contains malware, or you clicking on a link in an phishing
\nemail. If your computer hygiene is generally good and you avoid such things
\nyour risk is exponentially lowered although it never goes away. The internet is
\nstill the wild west in the way it was when it first came out, today it\u2019s a lot
\nmore violent. Be careful out there.<\/span><\/p>\n

Cost is going to be one of the
\nbiggest considerations regardless of what purpose you use the printer for. As I
\nsaid earlier, the payback for manufacturers is from selling ink, hopefully via
\na subscription which you are less likely to avoid paying for FOMO (Fear of
\nmissing out). <\/span><\/p>\n

If you just need a printer for
\ntext, you don\u2019t have to spend big, and you don\u2019t necessarily need to buy
\noriginal replacement inks if there are compatibles available. Of course in some
\ncases the compatibles are going to be of a poorer quality than the originals,
\nbut from experience that\u2019s not always the case. There are some compatible
\ncartridges that cost more than the originals purporting to be a much better
\nquality product with a higher page yield, but again, we are usually at the
\nmercy of online reviews in the absence of a print lab where we can carry out
\nindependent testing. <\/span><\/p>\n

My experience with
\nnon-originals has varied over the years, but I have found a few that have
\ngenuinely worked better than the originals but you do need to do your research
\nand you need to consider what you are printing. A third-party ink might not
\nhave the pigment that the original inks contain and might fade much faster, or
\nthey might even bring a range of issues and clog up the print heads which
\nsometimes means a replacement printer is going to be more economical than
\nreplacing the print head. There are also inks that will definitely be far
\nsuperior to anything the original manufacturer provides and some of these also
\ncome with a guarantee that your printer won\u2019t break down through using them. <\/span><\/p>\n

If you are in the market for
\nsomething that will produce quality prints, this usually means looking at
\ndevices at the other end of the price scale, but there are intermediate level
\ndevices that can produce exceptional prints, although most will produce them at
\na higher base price than a more expensive printer can manage, there are some
\neconomies of scale with printing and larger devices with larger ink tanks can
\nbe more economical.<\/span><\/p>\n

You also need to consider
\nwhether or not you need an all in one device that has the ability to scan,
\nprint and copy, but bear in mind that these devices with few exceptions tend to
\nnot be exceptionally good in any single area, they\u2019re built for general use and
\nprinter output is usually on a par with a lower priced stand-alone printers.<\/span><\/p>\n

Already, breaking this down to
\nexactly what you need the device to do should provide you with a much clearer
\nsteer about which way you need to go. But there are so many factors to consider
\nand so many different use cases that you might have, so I think there is often
\nsome merit in considering whether it is just a single device that you really
\nneed. <\/span><\/p>\n

If you are an artist, relying
\non an all in one device for the scanner might be a false economy, the scanners
\ntend to be slow and the resolutions and quality of the scans can be poor if you
\nare planning to use them to scan artworks professionally. You might need a drum
\nscanner to get the best results but the cost of these is usually prohibitive
\nfor most people, in which case it might be that you outsource professional
\nscanning rather than taking it on yourself.<\/span><\/p>\n

I mentioned earlier that I
\nhave a number of printers, that\u2019s because each have their own strengths for the
\nwide range of jobs that come through the studio doors, but it also makes it
\nmore cost effective overall. There\u2019s no real benefit printing text on an
\nexpensive dye-sublimation printer when the dot matrix can handle drafts for a
\nfraction of the cost. Equally, I might need something that looks a little
\nbetter than the dot matrix output or I will need to include graphics, so a low
\ncost ink jet will be more suited to a particular task even if the cost per print
\nis a little more expensive. <\/span><\/p>\n

It’s not unusual to work with
\na range of printers when you are creating prints that will be sold
\ncommercially, but to get the best value it comes down to using the devices
\nstrategically and thinking about any wear and tear. Having printers that suit
\nspecific needs means that you\u2019re not putting any of the devices under a heap of
\nstress, but good housekeeping is something that will pay dividends. <\/span><\/p>\n

The types of printers you are
\nlikely to find in most retailers generally fall into three main types, but this
\nmight limit you or lead you to the wrong decision. There are printers that can
\nbe used for specific tasks which will make it more cost effective than assuming
\nthat a laser jet or ink jet are the only viable options. Those are the two
\ntechnologies that most retailers will stock because they tend to be the most
\npopular technologies, but for some jobs, even a low cost ink jet might be akin
\nto using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.<\/span><\/p>\n

Inkjet is a technology that
\ncovers a broad range of uses and an even broader range of printers. Inkjet
\nprinters are popular for home and small office use because they\u2019re often
\ninexpensive and easy to set up. They work by propelling tiny droplets of ink
\nonto the paper and they can be found at all price points from a simple office
\ninkjet right the way up to a commercial inkjet capable of producing top quality
\nprints on multiple surfaces.<\/span><\/p>\n

Laser printers are more likely
\nto be found in offices but if you plan on printing mono text based documents at
\nhome, it\u2019s worth considering them for home use too. They\u2019re much less expensive
\nthan they once were and despite the toner cartridges costing more than a set of
\ninkjet inks, the page yields are often considerably higher, making them much
\nmore cost effective. Toner is generally available through third-parties and
\nthere is less risk around using third-party toners, they all tend to work in
\nexactly the same way and produce the same kind of results.<\/span><\/p>\n

Colour laser printers are a
\nmore complex proposition and they will have higher initial and ongoing running
\ncosts, but the overall page yields almost always make them more economical than
\nregular inkjets. Print quality is usually great with these printers but there
\nmay be better alternatives depending on what you want to print and the medium
\nyou want to print on. <\/span><\/p>\n

Whichever way you go with
\nlasers, they\u2019re mostly built for large volume printing and this is where they
\nreally begin to make sense financially. The downside is in the range of print
\nmediums that the smaller laser jets can handle but most will be able to handle
\npaper and card stock, many will print on transparent film but heavy duty papers
\nare often more of a problem.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sometimes referred to as MFDs,
\nor Multi-Function-Devices, they usually come with a heap of added benefits that
\nmake them a great choice for the home or office user. They also come in
\ndifferent sizes, some can take up the footprint of a laptop, others are floor
\nstanding and capable of printing thousands of pages each day. The downside is
\nthat they\u2019re not particularly strong in any area, print, scan or copy, when
\ncompared to the output from individual devices. <\/span><\/p>\n

The upside is cost, it\u2019s much
\ncheaper to buy an all in one and they take up so much less space than
\nindividual components, but if quality printing is important and you need it for
\ncommercial art prints, they\u2019re unlikely to fulfil that need entirely. That said,
\nthere are some that come close to perfect printing, but they will more than
\nlikely use regular ink tanks which means that the prints will fade in time,
\nthey can be fussy about paper type and they\u2019re generally more suited to
\neveryday printing. Point to note, some still come with a fax capability as a
\nthrowback from decades past, you need to consider how often you think about
\nsending a fax today.<\/span><\/p>\n

Faxes are still sent today but
\nphone lines have evolved over the past few years, and that\u2019s if you still have a
\nlandline that can be used with them. Most Fax components of MFDs will also be
\nincompatible with technologies such as digital voice. It\u2019s so much easier to
\nsend an email!<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s an old almost antiquated
\ntechnology that is still in use and there are printer manufacturers who still
\nmake them. Dot Matrix printers are great if you only ever need to print text,
\nnot so much if you need to print graphics. <\/span><\/p>\n

The print head uses pins to
\nstrike an inked ribbon which can usually be re-inked a number of times. Despite
\ntheir antique nature, most of them are pure bred work horses that also despite
\ntheir mechanical nature are relatively easy to repair. I still use one for
\nprinting drafts and code listings, and it is the same one I have been using for
\nthe past decade.<\/span><\/p>\n

Modern Dot Matrix printers are
\nusually connected via USB but the range of devices that they work with is
\nlimited. If you just need something for invoices or things that only you need
\nto read, and you want a printer that won\u2019t break the bank when replacing ink,
\nthey\u2019re certainly an option. Newer ones tend to be more expensive than lower
\ncost inkjets initially, and their output is limited.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Some retailers might tell you that there\u2019s
\nlittle difference between inkjet and dye sublimation printers, if they\u2019re
\ntrying to sell you an inkjet, most likely because there are inkjet printers
\nthat have rich feature sets and almost perfect printing. If you ask a retailer
\nwho specialises in dye-sublimation, they will point out the limitations of
\nregular inkjets and also point out that it\u2019s worth paying a premium for the
\nbetter technology.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you ask me, it depends on
\nwhat you want to print. If it\u2019s photographs that can be reprinted in the future
\nor you are using it for anything other than commercial work, dye-sublimation
\nprinters might be an expense that you can avoid. If you care about the
\nlongevity of your print output or the range of mediums you can print on, then
\ngoing all in on a dye sublimation printer is the way to go and if you need to
\nmake prints of your artwork, then a wide format dye sublimation printer is a
\nmust have.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dye-sublimation printers use a
\nheat transfer process to create prints. They utilise a special type of ink
\ncalled dye sublimation ink, which is typically in the form of solid dye panels
\nor cartridges. The ink is heated, turning it into a gas without passing through
\na liquid state. The gas then permeates the surface of the specially coated
\npaper, where it solidifies and becomes fused with the paper fibres. This
\nresults in continuous-tone prints with smooth gradients and vibrant colours.<\/span><\/p>\n

Inkjet printers, on the other
\nhand, use liquid ink that is sprayed onto the paper in the form of tiny
\ndroplets. The ink is delivered through microscopic nozzles in the print head,
\npropelled by thermal or piezoelectric mechanisms. Inkjet printers can produce
\nprints by either depositing ink directly onto the paper (known as the
\n“drop-on-demand” method) or by utilising an intermediate mechanism
\nsuch as a print head that transfers the ink onto the paper (known as the
\n“continuous ink system” method).<\/span><\/p>\n

Aside from the longevity of
\nthe prints that can be produced on a dye sublimation printer, you might also
\nwant to consider the other benefits. You will get better colour accuracy, (as
\nlong as you apply the correct colour profiles), you will almost certainly find
\nthat the finish of the print is indistinguishable from commercially produced
\nphoto and art prints.<\/span><\/p>\n

These are available through a
\nrange of the above technologies and are also known as large-format printers.
\nThese are capable of printing on larger paper sizes than standard printers and
\nare commonly used for producing banners, posters, architectural plans, and
\nother oversized documents. Wide-format printers can utilise various printing
\ntechnologies such as inkjet, laser, or even UV-curable inks.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you are a professional
\nartist, graphic designer or photographer, a wide format dye sublimation printer
\nis almost a complete business in a box and there are some that also provide a
\ncutting ability similar to the ability that Cricut machines have so that
\nstickers and shaped works can printed out. The downside to these is the expense
\nwith most commercial dye-sub or laser printer\/cutters costing upwards of five
\nfigures.<\/span><\/p>\n

My first printer in the 1980s
\nwas a thermal printer and despite its small size, it was a useful addition to
\nmy shiny new home computer, especially when I was typing out BASIC programs.
\nOne of my first commercial digital artworks was sold as a thermal print, a
\nblack image on metallic silver paper that was around four inches wide.<\/span><\/p>\n

Today, thermal printers are
\nstill manufactured and can be purchased for less than a hundred bucks. They\u2019re
\nextremely useful for printing shipping labels, most will come with software or
\nan app that has templates which can be used with online sellers such as eBay
\nand Amazon, generating the relevant product bar codes, assuming you have a
\nbarcode that has been assigned under a standard such as GS1.<\/span><\/p>\n

There are two types of thermal
\nprinter, direct thermal with uses a heat-sensitive paper and thermal transfer
\nwhich uses a ribbon to transfer ink to the paper. The downside is that colour
\nthermal printers are still in their infancy and not widely regarded as being
\nuseful for anything other than limited colour printing. <\/span><\/p>\n

Plotters are capable of
\nproducing extremely high resolution prints and are useful for technical
\ndrawings and architecture. They use markers to provide the print layer and are
\ngenerally much more expensive to purchase than other types of printer. For most
\npeople, a plotter will be mostly redundant in that they are suited for a very
\nspecific task and their footprint would make it impractical for anything other
\nthan specialist use.<\/span><\/p>\n

Slightly different to the dot
\nmatrix printer which is also an impact printing technology, impact printers are
\nmostly used in certain manufacturing industries for specialist processes. <\/span><\/p>\n

Portable printers can be
\nuseful, although not entirely practical for all of your print needs. Most of
\nthem will have a built in rechargeable battery and they can be a fun way to
\nshare photographs if you\u2019re meeting up with friends and family. <\/span><\/p>\n

They can be extremely useful
\nfor printing out receipts, especially if you are exhibiting at shows and
\nevents, and they typically connect over wireless to your device. There\u2019s no
\nabsolute reliance to have a Wi-Fi connection, although they connect via Wi-Fi
\nto your device, this is typically through the printers own hot spot. Many of
\nthe portable thermal printers work this way too.<\/span><\/p>\n

You can find pocket sized
\nprinters which are more suited to printing out snapshots and receipts, but if
\nyou are commuting and need access to a printer that will print out business
\ndocuments, there are larger format sizes available, although don\u2019t expect
\nsizing above the standard letter size or A4. <\/span><\/p>\n

Almost from the same stable,
\nportable document scanners work in a similar way but my advice is to steer
\nclear of these as the results won\u2019t always be any better than the scanning
\nfeature that is integrated into modern cell phone operating systems which
\nutilise the phone camera with a much higher resolution than a portable document
\nscanner will offer.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\"mp3<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
I Want My MP3 by Mark Taylor<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m often blown away by the
\never increasing resolutions offered by various printer manufacturers. Printers
\njust keep getting better and they always seem to have ever burgeoning numbers
\nprinted on the boxes lined up in retail stores. <\/span><\/p>\n

High numbers are usually a
\ngood sign that a printer will perform, but they\u2019re not the best and only
\nindicator that you should consider before parting with your cash. A printer
\ncapable of extremely high resolution prints might not perform as well as the
\nprinter with a slightly lower resolution. <\/span><\/p>\n

The high resolutions offered
\nfrom new printers means on paper (excuse the pun), the biggest numbers should
\nproduce the sharpest detail because the number of dots per inch is higher. This
\nshould also mean that there is far more detail in the print image but that\u2019s
\nnot the only\u00a0 <\/span>consideration. A high
\nresolution print that is overly saturated will look less sharp than a lower
\nresolution print that is perfectly balanced. You will likely be printing at 300
\ndots per inch (dpi) for commercial work, so ideally anything above 600 dpi is
\ngoing to be useful, the overall resolution will then determine the detail but
\nbear in mind that unless you are using a wide format printer, larger
\nresolutions aren\u2019t necessarily the be all and end all.<\/span><\/p>\n

Resolution is a measure of
\npixel density, not the overall size of the print. If you place a business card
\nnext to a bill board, it\u2019s likely that the bill board was printed at a much
\nlower resolution, although both look pin sharp. That\u2019s because a billboard is
\nviewed at a distance so you won\u2019t necessarily see that it is made up of lots of
\ndots, a business card is seen much closer and if you applied 72 dots rather
\nthan 300 the image would be lacking any level of detail, this is because the
\nhuman eye resolves the larger lower resolution print when viewed from a
\ndistance.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, much of the detail
\nwon\u2019t come as a result of the quality of the resolution, it will come from the
\nmedium being used, the settings that you choose, the application that you are
\nusing to print the image from, and more importantly, whether or not you are
\nusing the correct colour profile. I have managed to get some great results from
\nthe cheapest inkjets by changing the settings, the paper and setting a colour
\nprofile.<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s something else that you
\nneed to consider when buying a printer, will it support the colour profiles
\nused by your application, your monitor, or the colour profile of the paper as
\nprovided by the paper manufacturer. Profiles for specific media need to be
\napplied to every device in your creative process so that the colour you print
\nis the same as the colour you see on screen.<\/span><\/p>\n

The ink that you use will also
\nhave a bearing on the final results, if you are using third-party inks, the
\nprinter might not be optimised for the pigment or dye that the cartridges
\ncontain and this can often lead to over or under saturated prints that appear
\nto be blurry, but bear in mind that some third-party tanks will be infinitely
\nbetter than the originals, so it\u2019s not an easy space to navigate.<\/span><\/p>\n

The medium that you print on
\nis another huge consideration, if you use low quality paper stock, it will
\nimpact the overall quality of the print and again, this could be another
\nculprit for over and under saturation but loose fibres in cheaper paper stock
\ncan clog up the print head. Good quality paper stock is usually more expensive,
\nbut the paper tends to be slightly heavier and the manufacturer might have a
\nspecific colour profile that can be used with that specific paper. The
\nbrightness of the paper tends to make a difference to the colour of the print,
\nbrighter papers will usually provide more vibrant colour.<\/span><\/p>\n

Canson papers are generally
\nexcellent and come with profile support, but I have found with many of the
\npremium papers that cheaper printers can sometimes struggle with their weight
\nor texture. Some glossy or lightweight papers can slip on the print rollers
\nmeaning the printer will either jam or the print will be at an angle leaving an
\ninky mess inside the printer. <\/span><\/p>\n

Getting the correct paper
\nweight is usually trial and error. Some printer manufacturers will state that
\ntheir printers are compatible with mediums up to a specific weight, but that
\ndoesn\u2019t always mean that particular weight will work, it depends on the quality
\nof the paper or other print medium. Papers and print mediums that are too thin,
\ntoo slippy, too thick, are all going to present an issue at some level, and
\neven the coating on some papers can make some printers struggle or can mean
\nthat the ink doesn\u2019t adhere properly to the paper. <\/span><\/p>\n

I look at supported paper specifications
\ntouted by manufacturers with some scepticism, from experience not all papers
\nare equal even if they\u2019re the same weight. One thing you really need to know
\nbefore deciding on a printer is what kind of material you will be using, so to
\ngive you a better idea, here\u2019s a rough guide to figuring that part of the
\nequation out.<\/span><\/p>\n

300 GSM+<\/span><\/i> Good
\nquality business card or heavy card media<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

180-250 GSM Mid-Market quality
\nmagazine cover<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

130-170 GSM Promotional
\nPosters and Flyers<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

80 GSM Regular everyday matte
\nwhite office paper<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

35 GSM \u2013 55GSM A regular
\nnewspaper<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

I tend not to make any
\ncompromises on paper, I only ever use acid-free mediums and wherever I can, I
\nalways buy paper that\u2019s made as close to home as possible. The environmental
\nimpact of buying incredibly cheap paper through online marketplaces should be
\nsomething that needs to be better controlled and monitored. <\/span><\/p>\n

The wood pulp could originate from
\ntrees that might have been illegally felled or logged from regions where
\nenvironmental controls are not enforced, and the impact of shipping it from
\nsomewhere like China isn\u2019t something I can get behind. I do purchase some
\npapers from Italy, but those are usually very specialist and I will only use
\nthose papers when I need an absolute guarantee of quality. I only buy recycled
\npaper if it carries a trustworthy certification<\/span><\/p>\n

An ICC profile is a file that
\ndescribes the colour gamut and colour rendering intent of a device. There is a
\ndifference between the intent and the gamut, a colour gamut is the range of
\ncolours that a device can reproduce whereas a colour rendering intent is a set
\nof rules that describe how colours should be translated from one device to
\nanother.<\/span><\/p>\n

ICC profiles are used to
\nensure that colours are reproduced accurately when they are transferred from
\none device to another. For example, an ICC profile for a printer can be used to
\nensure that the colours on a monitor are reproduced accurately when they are
\nprinted so that you print exactly what you see.<\/span><\/p>\n

ICC profiles are typically
\ncreated by device manufacturers and in some cases, paper manufacturers. They
\ncan also be created by third-party companies that specialise in colour
\nmanagement. An ICC profile is a complex algorithm that can take many years to
\nrefine and develop.<\/span><\/p>\n

ICC profiles are used by a
\nvariety of software applications, to use one, you need to install it in the
\nsoftware application that you are using. Once the ICC profile is installed, the
\nsoftware application will use it to ensure that colours are reproduced
\naccurately.<\/span><\/p>\n

ICC profiles can help to
\nensure that colours are reproduced accurately when they are transferred from
\none device to another. This can be helpful for businesses that need to ensure
\nthat their marketing materials look the same across different devices, such as
\nprinters, monitors, and mobile devices and they are essential for professional
\nprinting of artworks and photographs.<\/span><\/p>\n

ICC profiles can also help to
\nimprove your overall workflow by reducing the need to manually adjust colour
\nsettings. This is one of the things that can save you a heap of time and
\nfrustration and it means that what you print will be consistent. Never
\nunderestimate the power of an ICC profile to contribute to having either a
\npositive effect on your bottom line, and when used frequently, they also have a
\nmassive time saving benefit too.<\/span><\/p>\n

Most failed prints usually
\ncome about as a result of the wrong settings being applied or the wrong type of
\npaper, or print sizing being set incorrectly. It\u2019s frustrating when this
\nhappens even when printing everyday print jobs, when you print commercially,
\nevery print has a defined monetary value and it becomes critical to your bottom
\nline. If you are using a $30 sheet of paper the last thing you want to see is a
\nmisaligned or mis-sized print. <\/span><\/p>\n

Checking the printer driver is
\nalso something that can affect your print output, it\u2019s not just about the
\nsecurity an up to date driver offers, things like page yield can be affected
\ntoo. Using generic drivers can be a particular problem when you use plug and
\nplay through Windows. Plug and play is designed to automate the installation of
\na driver but if Windows cannot find the original driver it will often revert to
\na generic one.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you are missing useful
\nfeatures on your printer and they\u2019re showing as not available in your
\napplication, it could be because a generic driver has been installed. The
\nproblem with generic drivers is that they\u2019re just that, generic and need to
\nwork with many products. This means that the features of your printer might not
\nbe accessible or the print quality might not be optimal. Generic drivers should
\nonly be a temporary replacement for the authentic driver specific to your
\nprinter, mostly because generic drivers are updated less frequently. <\/span><\/p>\n

They can also be responsible
\nfor introducing compatibility issues with other applications, and especially
\nwhen working with colour profiles, that\u2019s another good reason to take some time
\nresearching printers and consider the manufacturers history of providing
\nupdates. It\u2019s another subject that often appears in so many online
\nconversations and looking through a few posts on Reddit recently, printer
\nowners are generally an unhappy bunch of users regardless of their allegiance
\nto any particular manufacturer, once again reaffirming the notion that mostly,
\nall printers suck!<\/span><\/p>\n

Setting the print quality incorrectly
\nis another cause of failed prints, many printers will allow you to set a
\ndefault printing profile and then we forget and print out a letter in the best
\nresolution and we will print out art prints using the draft mode on really
\nexpensive paper stock. Setting up paper sizes and margins can cause similar
\nissues, and leaving paper margins at the default offered by programs such as
\nMicrosoft Word can mean you spend even more on consumables. <\/span><\/p>\n

Decreasing the page margins
\nespecially on drafts and print outs that very few other people will read can
\nmake a huge difference to your consumables bill. If you are a regular user of
\napplications such as Microsoft Word, Google Docs or Pages, make sure you set up
\nyour own templates with reduced margins so that you can fit more on to each
\npage, and I would go so far as to say that creating templates will always bring
\nbetter results than relying on the printer manufacturers software applications.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you could judge a printer
\nbased solely on the functionality of its software and print features, that
\nwould certainly simplify the selection. Some of the print manufacturers have
\nbrilliant companion applications that allow you to layout your page so that
\nwhat you see in the print preview is exactly what will be printed out, really
\nuseful for printing multiple labels on a single sheet or when you want a
\nselection of images on the same page, but not all printer software is equal and
\nsome of it that gets bundled with a printer is supplied by a third-party
\noutside of the printer manufacturer usually in the form of a lite version. <\/span><\/p>\n

In the past when comparing two
\nprinters side by side, I have been known to download the software before making
\na commitment to the printer to give it the once over and a general kick of the
\ntyres. The software can often tell you more about what you are about to buy
\nthan you can read on the box. Sometimes the manufacturer provides a mobile app
\nas well, and these are usually worth a download so you can at least compare the
\nuser interfaces which are mostly more reminiscent of the Windows XP era. It is
\nworth checking out how often these support applications are updated too.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\"landscape<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
A Perfect Day by Mark Taylor<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

There are some things that we
\nnever realise will make a difference to the printer output beyond the usual
\nsuspects of brand, paper stock quality and making sure the settings are
\ncorrect. Making sure that your print rollers are cleaned with isopropyl alcohol
\nmeans that there is less chance of paper fibres and inks building up and
\nleaving behind a residue that makes the paper slip, jam, or stick.<\/span><\/p>\n

Purging your print queue can
\nspeed up the printing process, sometimes print jobs fail to spool properly while
\nthe printer is still attempting to resolve previous print jobs. A clogged up
\nqueue means that your printer either fails to print or takes a lot longer than
\nit should. Cancelling previous print jobs that haven\u2019t cleared should resolve
\nthis issue.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you are connecting via USB,
\nmake sure that you are using a high speed USB cable, ideally USB 3.0. Not all
\nprinters will support USB 3, neither will all computers, but using a high
\nquality cable does make a difference to the speed of the print job when
\nprinting over a cabled connection. Remember that Wi-Fi printing will always be
\nslower than printing via a cable, that\u2019s due to other network traffic using the
\nsame bandwidth, you might also see more issues with unfinished print jobs
\nsitting in the print queue on a wireless network. <\/span><\/p>\n

If you can, give your printer
\na static IP address on your Wi-Fi network, there are plenty of online guides
\nthat will take you through doing this step by step, but you may have to also
\nconsult the documentation from the manufacturer or supplier of your Wi-Fi
\nrouter. Some routers will even allow you to plug the printer into a USB port on
\nthem so that any device accessing your Wi-Fi can then print without any issues
\nwith your device showing an error that says it can\u2019t find a printer on your
\nnetwork. If you set this up on a PC, make sure that you also set the printer so
\nthat it can be shared and found across other devices on your network. <\/span><\/p>\n

Whenever possible, I would
\nalways suggest connecting the printer to either the router via USB or even
\nbetter, through a network cable, although not all printers have network
\ncapability and not all routers will support a printer, or at least very well. <\/span><\/p>\n

If you are able to do this, it
\nwill exponentially increase the speed of printing, but one thing I would also
\npoint out is that when you are printing, ignore the promised page per minute
\nspeeds from the manufacturers, the results are usually collected in ideal
\nconditions and the printer and network will have been optimised for the test by
\npeople who really do have a better grip on this kind of stuff than most regular
\nfolk will have. <\/span><\/p>\n

I wouldn\u2019t be overly concerned
\nabout slightly slower speeds between printers, the fastest printer on a poorly
\nconfigured network will only work at the speed that the network allows. Mostly,
\nit is what it is and the fastest speeds published by manufacturers will likely
\nbe predicated on printing at the very lowest quality setting.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some applications have their
\nown support for some printers and it is often better than the software provided
\nby the printer manufacturer, although it is usually dependant on you having an
\nofficial printer driver installed so that the application can talk to the
\nprinter and is able to understand what the printer is capable of. <\/span><\/p>\n

When it comes to borderless
\nprinting you might think that this is the best output which will provide the
\nbest results, but that very much depends on the paper or other medium that you
\nare using. Not all papers are suitable for borderless printing. <\/span><\/p>\n

Regular inkjet papers are too
\nthin for photo prints and generally won\u2019t work with borderless printing, the
\nink will completely saturate the paper and the paper is unlikely to remain flat.
\nIf you select a borderless setting and set the paper to regular inkjet, most
\nprinter software will prevent you from doing this because you might have to
\nclean up an incredible inky mess but some printers will allow you to press print
\nand it rarely ends well.<\/span><\/p>\n

Quality photo paper,
\nespecially if it\u2019s glossy doesn\u2019t always play nicely with borderless printing
\neither. You need to make sure you are using a paper that specifically
\nidentifies it as being suitable for borderless printing otherwise the ink could
\nstruggle to adhere to the border and begin to separate from the paper. <\/span><\/p>\n

You also need to be mindful of
\ncolour bleed around the edges with borderless printing, if any of your other
\nsettings are not consistent with the paper type that you are using a borderless
\nprint can lose detail around the edges and detract from the quality of the
\noverall print.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n


\nPrinter calibration is important because it ensures that the colours you see on
\nyour monitor are accurately reproduced on your printer. I mentioned using ICC
\nprofiles earlier but calibration can be done in a number of different ways.<\/span><\/p>\n

Calibration will greatly improve
\nthe quality of your prints.\u00a0When a printer is calibrated, it can produce
\nmore accurate and vibrant colours. This can make your prints look better, but
\nmaybe as importantly, it will save a heap of reprints and a lot of time and
\nfrustration. Good quality paper, the correct settings, an ICC profile, and a
\ncalibrated printer are considered the magical ingredients to produce a great
\nprint, even from budget friendly printers.<\/span><\/p>\n

Calibration is the best way to
\nsave money.\u00a0If you are not happy with the quality of your prints, you might
\nreprint them after tweaking the settings, and it might take two or three prints
\nbefore you\u2019re closer to happy. Calibrating your printer can help you avoid this
\nby ensuring that your prints are accurate the first time, and it means you
\nwon\u2019t be using excessive ink by overcompensating on some of the settings.<\/span><\/p>\n

There are a number of ways to
\ncalibrate your printer. You can use a software-based calibration tool, or you
\ncan use a hardware-based calibration device. Software-based calibration tools
\nare less expensive, but they may not be as accurate as hardware-based calibration
\ndevices. <\/span><\/p>\n

No matter what method you
\nchoose, it is important to calibrate your printer regularly. This is because
\nprinters can drift over time, which can cause the colours to become inaccurate.
\nCalibrating your printer once a month or every two months can help you maintain
\nthe printers colour accuracy. <\/span><\/p>\n

Most printers will have some
\nform of calibration function, the problem tends to be that it\u2019s rarely repeated
\nby the user after the initial set up, unless lines start appearing in your prints.
\nCalibration will use ink and I suspect this is what puts people off doing it,
\nbut it also saves ink in the long run, it really is swings and roundabouts with
\nthis stuff but calibrating the printer regularly will give you consistent
\noutput and it will contribute to extending your printers life.<\/span><\/p>\n

Print heads and nozzles
\nshouldn\u2019t need to be manually cleaned all that often if you use the printer
\nfrequently, but they will need cleaning regularly if you don\u2019t use the printer
\nfor a period of time. Many printers have a self-cleaning routine, you\u2019re more
\nlikely to see this on printers that have a built in screen or are able to be
\nset up via a software application initially and it\u2019s not a setting that you
\nshould turn off. <\/span><\/p>\n

The best advice I can give you
\nis to schedule any self-cleaning routines to a suitable time. The last thing
\nyou need is the printer to start churning away and doing its thing during a
\nTeams meeting, and if you have more than one printer, set the cleaning activity
\nat different times. I learnt this the hard way when four of my printers all
\nfired up at the same time, not only did I nearly fall off my chair, the noise
\nof four printers doing their own thing is like being subjected to noise levels
\nthat would usually mean wearing ear defenders.<\/span><\/p>\n

You also need to make sure you
\nhave at least some paper in the printer so that the cleaning routine can take
\nplace, although it may not be needed with your specific printer, it\u2019s better to
\nbe prepared. I regularly find the odd page on the floor from some random
\nactivity taking place.<\/span><\/p>\n

When it comes to how often you
\nshould use the printer, each printer technology will be different but any kind
\nof inkjet system or dye-sublimation technology needs to be regularly fed with a
\nprint job. As a minimum, I try to make sure that inkjets print out at least two
\nor three times a week because this is one of the best ways to keep the nozzles
\nclean and longer term it reduces the amount of ink used and wasted through drying
\nout.<\/span><\/p>\n

You also need to clean any
\nmoving parts and rollers, I tend to use a cotton bud or Q-Tip with isopropyl
\nalcohol, or a long handled paintbrush to keep the rollers clean, it\u2019s
\nsurprising just how much paper dust settles on those rollers and an excess
\nbuild up will make any paper eventually slip and jam and if there\u2019s enough of
\nit there could be a chance that you begin ingesting it and that\u2019s probably not
\nso good.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you keep on top of general
\nprinter housekeeping they can mostly continue to do a good job for a while. I\u2019m
\nyet to find the perfect modern day printer that provides me with everything I
\nneed in a single device, but from experience, having a couple of printers and
\nsending specific print jobs to the right printer is a lot like having tools in
\nthe toolbox. Just as we wouldn\u2019t rely on a hammer to do the work of a screwdriver,
\nprinters are really no different. <\/span><\/p>\n

They\u2019re all designed and
\nmanufactured with a specific function or range of functions in mind, the real
\nissues show up when we creep outside of the printers technical scope and ask it
\nto do what it wasn\u2019t designed to do, or as we know from our experiences, we try
\nto find the printer on a wireless network. <\/span><\/p>\n

We really have only scraped
\nthe surface of what we need to consider when thinking about purchasing a
\nprinter, although I think to some extent, any modern printer will generally
\ngive you exceptional print quality, especially if you think back and make a
\ncomparison to printers of a decade ago. In terms of output, I\u2019ve yet to find a
\nmodern day printer that produces results poorer than they could produce a
\ndecade ago. <\/span><\/p>\n

If there were a handful of
\nimportant takeaways to think about, I would certainly think about what you need
\nthe printer for, the budget you have, and whether that budget can stretch to
\neither a better model or having access to a second cheap and cheerful printer
\nfor the more regular light duty things you ask of it and keep the best printer
\nfor the highest paying jobs.<\/span><\/p>\n

I would be less inclined to
\nworry about resolutions if the print output size is the size you need, and I
\nthink I would put as much of the budget as I can into a printer only model
\nrather than a multi-functional device. If you already have an MFD and the
\nscanner works, sure you will have an extra few steps to take when photocopying,
\nbut that non-MFD is going to give you way better results and you can buy a mint
\npre-used scanner from eBay these days for very little, even professional
\nscanners can be affordable if they\u2019re pre-used.<\/span><\/p>\n

From my own experience, rental
\ncan work but I did find some distinctive triggers that separate when you should
\nbuy, when you should rent and when you should buy again. You need enough work
\nto make rentals economical, and then you need to recognise when you reach a
\ncritical point that might make an outright purchase a better longer term fit
\nfor the purse strings. <\/span><\/p>\n

Bear in mind that there\u2019s
\noften some level of equipment cost versus use calculation that needs to be
\nconsidered, and take into account any depreciation and replacement costs as any
\ncombination of these things could affect the amount of tax that you pay or even
\nclaim back because these things can be tax deductible in some regions.<\/span><\/p>\n

The overall cost of the
\nprinter should be thought about, there\u2019s little value in renting a domestic
\nlevel printer that\u2019s maybe a bit more robust than others, it\u2019s still a domestic
\nprinter. If you are in the market for a wide format printer that\u2019s likely to
\ncost in the region of a five figure sum, rental and a service wrap might be
\nmuch more practical. <\/span><\/p>\n

When you hit printer costs at
\nfive figures, it\u2019s unlikely you will be using them to only print out the
\noccasional piece of work, they\u2019re more likely to be heavily used and abused and
\nhaving them professionally serviced and calibrated makes a lot of sense. <\/span><\/p>\n

When my work is rotated into one
\nof my retailers, usually during the summer months, I might need to supply
\nanywhere between 300 and 400 prints, all of them are signed so it makes much
\nmore sense for me to either outsource the work or to take a week off from everything
\nelse to focus on printing. It is really horses for courses, there will be a for
\nand an against for anything you do but in the end it comes down to how much
\ndifference the decision will make to your bottom line.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\"circuit<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Circuit by Mark Taylor<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

I use a Cricut cutting machine
\nwhich is superb, especially when working with intricate cuts and vinyl. Matched
\nwith a dye-sublimation printer, there\u2019s not too many jobs that come through the
\nstudio doors that I need to fully outsource.<\/span><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t routinely offer any
\nprinting services but plenty of artists do, it\u2019s an ideal second gate to your
\nbusiness that can be a useful service to other artists in your area. If you
\nonly have a limited number of print jobs from your own work, offering to rent
\nout the printer or provide a service to other artists can make it more
\naffordable to go for a better printer.<\/span><\/p>\n

I also use a dye-sublimation
\nheat press for mugs. Most of the time a client will order a mug through one of
\nmy print on demand stores but depending on the customers location, it\u2019s not
\nalways economical for them to then have to pay import duties or excessive
\npostage. With a stock of sublimation ready mugs I can still offer the same
\nproduct, but I can also offer bespoke designs for clients. Right now I\u2019m
\nprocessing an order for 100 mugs with retro-inspired designs, so it also
\nbenefits my bottom line by being able to offer both design and printing without
\nthe need for a third party. The downside is finding the time to commit to
\nproduction so you do have to consider whether this is something you can afford.<\/span><\/p>\n

The point is that even if you
\ndon\u2019t have quite enough throughput to justify the printer that will make your
\nart prints pop, you can get creative by offering additional services. I view
\nhigh end printers as an extension to the business rather than looking at them
\nsolely as devices that I can only use for printing my own work. <\/span><\/p>\n

If you need the highest
\nquality printing but don\u2019t have the volume to get the most value from a
\nprinter, outsourcing your print jobs with a specialist local printer or using
\nprint on demand is probably going to be the direction that you will initially
\ntravel in, but an over-reliance on print on demand will mean that you lose that
\nall-important connection to your client base. You essentially do all of the
\nwork to bring the clients to someone else\u2019s website, where they then take the
\nrelationship over and provide the print and you receive a fee. It\u2019s a good
\nmodel but it should never replace that direct client relationship.<\/span><\/p>\n

Print on demand takes the
\ntransaction headache away but there are solutions to overcome that by using a
\nservice such as Shopify. That said, you are then responsible for every order so
\nthere\u2019s the friction, either lose the relationship or retain it and work a
\nlittle harder.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you are looking to own your
\nown printer, the question is around how much volume you intend to put through
\nit and if there\u2019s not enough volume, the happy compromise would be to outsource
\nto a local printer. There are pitfalls here though.<\/span><\/p>\n

Bear in mind that not all
\nlocal printers will be familiar with the standards needed when delivering fine
\nart prints. With this in mind, some of your printer purchase decisions will
\ncome down to knowing your audience. If they are happy to pay a premium, they
\nabsolutely need to receive the best possible premium quality. If they\u2019re more
\nbudget conscious, you have to find the middle ground, there\u2019s always going to
\nbe compromise involved in doing this.<\/span><\/p>\n

The only other thing to add
\ntoday is not to underestimate the added burden and responsibility that home or
\nstudio printing will add to your art practice. I outsource quite a bit of work,
\noperate via print on demand and then print special editions in the studio or
\nthrough a specialist print service that deals with fine art prints and has
\naccess to the mediums I need from them. <\/span><\/p>\n

Despite this, the time I spend
\nprinting in the studio still equates to anywhere between six and eight hours
\neach week which is just like adding another day\u2019s work to a nine to five job so
\nyou do have to make some additional commitments. Creating the work with a brush
\nor whatever your medium of choice is, is only ever 20% of the job.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\"New<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
New England Fall by Mark Taylor<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

Hopefully, my musings today
\nwill help you reach the right decision when it comes to selecting a printer. I\u2019m
\nbrutally aware that you may have even more questions now than you had when you
\nthought you just wanted a printer, but think of it this way. The print that the
\nprinter creates is, for artists, a constant shop window. You need something
\nthat will print with enough vibrancy, clarity, and crispness so that it shows
\nyour work in the best light possible, The end result is what people will
\ndevelop a feeling for.<\/span><\/p>\n

Whether you outsource the
\nwork, do it yourself, set up a collective group of artists who share the
\nequipment and the costs is less relevant, the ultimate test is whether the
\noutput is good enough to hand over or sell to those who care enough about your
\nwork to want to own a print of it. Clients mostly don\u2019t care that you have the
\ngreatest printer with all of the functionality of the Starship Enterprise, they
\ncare about how the end result looks and what it costs, and occasionally that
\nfocus might lean more on one side than the other.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Owning a farm of printers is
\nmore akin to collecting pets, they all need feeding and looking after, each
\nprinter will also have its own set of complicated emotions that you will need
\nto work with, and that has to be reflected in some way through what you charge.<\/span><\/p>\n

Buying big and expensive might
\nultimately be more cost-effective than buying cheap and cheerful, but either
\nway, there will be a learning curve to understand what the device is capable of
\nso that you produce consistency at every step. For me, answering the questions
\nwhere the answers didn\u2019t appear on the box the printer arrived in was way more
\nuseful when selecting the printer. <\/span><\/p>\n

Good luck with your search and
\nif I ever do find the unicorn that is the perfect printer, I\u2019ll revisit this
\ntopic and let you know what it is. In the meantime, as always, stay creative,
\nlook after each other and try not to spill ink on the carpet!<\/span><\/p>\n

Mark is an artist who
\nspecialises in vintage inspired works featuring technology and is also known
\nfor his landscape works and the occasional abstract! He lives in Staffordshire,
\nEngland. He has been creating professional digital work since the 1980s.<\/span><\/p>\n

You can purchase Mark\u2019s work
\nthrough Fine Art America or his Pixels site here:\u00a0https:\/\/10-mark-taylor.pixels.com<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0You
\ncan also purchase prints and originals directly. You can also view Mark\u2019s
\nportfolio website at\u00a0https:\/\/beechhousemedia.com<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Join the conversation on
\nFacebook at: https:\/\/facebook.com\/beechhousemedia<\/a>
\nconnect on Twitter @beechhouseart or waste hours on Pinterest right here: https:\/\/pinterest.com\/beechhousemedia<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Understanding Printers… Printers are an essential part of any home or office, but with so many different models on the market, it can be tough to know which one is right for you. 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