As I am increasingly digitising my creativity due to cost and the wonderful web I found this article very interesting. I do love doing all my work on the computer, but sometimes I need to print things off, and when I do, I often have a battle with myself at how much ink I am using. Sadly, my initial investigations found that I could not get a CISS for my printer, which is a shame because it is the first and only one I ever bought, and I love it. This doesn't mean that I can be selfish about the information though. You may find this article useful to yourself.
http://www.funkyfairyspapercrafts.com/shop/Printing.php
The following suggestions are just based on my 'personal' opinions, to help you get the 'BEST' possible results for the 'LEAST' amount of money!!!
Iam in NO way connected to any companies or product mentioned.
Firstly think about 'Why' you are wanting to print out papers at home.
If you are printing out papers at home from your home pc,it is normally because it's the more 'cost effective' option,rather than buying shop bought papers.
Most of us have one of those all in one scanner,printer machines ect.....but how much is your ink for it? I have one of those machines here (but i don't use mine) The ink for mine is about £50 for 2 cartridges,so now if i used THAT machine to print out my papers,it just would NOT be cost effective,it would be cheaper to buy the shop bought papers.
I personally have always gone for epson printers,because you can buy fairly cheap compatable ink cartridges for them . You 'DON'T' need an expensive top of the range printer to print out papers,you 'DON'T' need the most expensive ink either.
The printer i use now is a very normal cheap everday printer. It is an Epson D92,which you can buy for £30 and under . It's not the 'fstest' printer in the world,but it gives me the quality print that i want.
You can buy 'fairly' cheap compatable ink cartridges for this printer too,however i don't buy ink cartridges anymore, as i bought a CISS instead. (continuous Ink Supply System) The CISS is basically a cartridge that sits in your printer were you would put a 'normal' cart, the CISS cart has plastic tubes connected to it that are also connected to large ink tanks. You don't replace the cartridge,you simply pour ink into the ink tanks .
You have to buy the CISS that is for YOUR particular printer. So when i bought mine i bought the one that was compatable with an epson D92. The CISS complete with full tanks of ink cost £25. Upto now,since i bought the CISS i have printed LOADS of papers ...AND photo's,yet i'm still using the same ink that came with the CISS. When you want more ink for your CISS you buy a set of 100ml bottles of ink. My printer takes 3 colours and a black. So i get 4 100ml bottles of ink, and with p&p it costs roughly £11. (I used to pay that for 1 set of cartridges) now for the same price the inktanks hold 20 + times the amount of the cartridges.So the CISS is very,very cost effective.(I used ebay for the CISS, and for the refill inks)
Paper! I have tried out loads of different papers.I also print onto card,acetate,shrink,vellum,safmat ect...but when it comes to your everday paper which you will use the most,i have found 1 that is just perfect for this. I use this paper all the time,and i won't use any other. The paper i use is Tesco Finest printer paper. It is 120gsm ,nice thickness,nice and smooth,its' just perfect, and it only costs just under £3 for 250 sheets.
If you were to print a patterned paper onto normal thin printer paper and a sheet of the tesco finest,straight away you will see the difference,because when printing your own papers ,it DOES make a BIG difference as to what paper you use.
Every time i print out my papers i get perfect results everytime. I use the epson 92, CISS, tesco finest paper....AND i print them out at TEXTquality!...and the print perfectly.
There is no point printing out papers if you are having to print at best/photo quality all the time,this will consume your ink quickly,so wouldn't be very cost effective....UNLESS you had a CISS
So if what you want is the BEST possible results for the LEAST amount of money, then just follow the advice i have just given you :)
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