What Are the Two Main Characteristics of Inkjet Printers That Affect Image Quality?

Whatever types of documents your company needs to print, you want output hardware that provides the best performance for the lowest possible purchase price. Today’s inkjet printers produce excellent photographic output and text quality that rivals that of a laser printer. Consider two top-level hardware characteristics as they relate to image quality when evaluating inkjet printers in light of your business and its typical document workflow, and select the version of these attributes that matches your workflow.

Printhead Design
Inkjet printers employ one of two basic printhead technologies. Thermal designs use heat to push tiny ink bubbles onto the paper, whereas piezo-electric designs use electricity to change the shape of the nozzle, releasing ink droplets of varying sizes. Because piezo-electric printheads do not require heat to force out ink, they may offer faster print speeds and longer hardware durability than thermal counterparts. Furthermore, smaller ink droplets can result in improved image reproduction.

Ink Type
Inkjet printers use dye- or pigment-based inks. Dye-based inks produce a wide range of brilliant colours, allow for smaller ink droplets, and are less expensive than pigment-based inks, but their absorption into paper can blur fine detail reproduction. Furthermore, dye-based inks fade faster than pigment-based inks. Their water-soluble colouring agents result in output with little water resistance. Pigment-based inks set on the surface of paper rather than sinking into it, making them less susceptible to water damage and fading, but they produce a narrower colour gamut.

Ink Usage
Inkjet printers with low prices typically use only two ink cartridges: one for black and one for cyan, magenta, and yellow. If one of the three colours runs out before the other two, you’ll have to discard a partially viable cartridge. Individual ink tanks or cartridges are used for each ink colour in higher-end printers; photo printers may use eight or ten inks to produce subtle colour variations. Image reproduction quality can be affected not only by printhead and ink type, but also by the number of inks used by the printer and whether it includes options for optimal black output on papers with different surface finishes, typically glossy or matte.

Considerations
Although the paper you use isn’t a printer feature, it has an impact on output quality almost as much as the hardware’s capabilities and limitations. Papers designed to improve the perceived sharpness and clarity of printed output by using specialised chemistry to produce well-matched surface characteristics can improve the perceived sharpness and clarity of printed output. Printing on standard office bond paper, on the other hand, yields inferior results, especially when printing photographs or graphics.