Planning on buying a printer but wondering which printing technology is right for you? Then read on.

What's important here is what purpose you will use this printer for. Will you
print frequently or occasionally? Is black and white printing sufficient for you
or will you also print colors and possibly photos? First you need to decide if
you should get an inkjet printer or a laser printer. Let's look at the features
of these two printing technologies.

Inkjet Printers can be categorized as 3-color inkjet printers, 4-color inkjets
and photo printing inkjet printers. The 4-color inkjet printers are the most
popular ones in the printing industry.

4-color Inkjet Printers usually hold two ink cartridges (one for black and one
for color). Some hold two additional ink cartridges to separate the colors and
have one ink cartridge for each color (black, cyan, magenta and yellow).

3-color Inkjet Printers are usually equivalent to the low-end 4 color inkjet
printers with the exception of holding only one ink cartridge at a time. So you
need to switch the ink cartridge to change between black and color. The 3-color
inkjet printers are no longer popular as the 4-color inkjet printer prices are
continually dropping.

The photo printing inkjet printers are a bit more complicated than the first
two. Many of the 4-color inkjets print photos with good quality and most photo
printing inkjets carry the same features as 4-color inkjets with just a few
special photo printing features added such as directly printing from the digital
camera. Most of the photo printing inkjets use additional colors such as light
cyan light magenta, green, and red to provide true photographic quality outputs.

Laser Printers have two different technologies for black & white (monochrome)
and color printing. Among the laser printers, monochrome laser printers are the
most popular ones in the industry. Generally, laser printers are faster than
inkjet printers. Laser printers are quite popular as they offer fast printing,
good print quality and low cost per page. They use toner cartridges instead of
ink cartridges found in inkjet printers.

Whether it’s for home offices, businesses or home users, I can say that
Monochrome Laser Printers offer the best balance between print quality, price
and speed. With their prices dropping down to around $200 (personal laser
printer) they start to become a good alternative to inkjet printers. As
monochrome laser printers’ toner cartridges cost less, they are less expensive
to maintain. However if you print color, you may want to go for an inkjet
printer.

Color Laser Printers are generally designed for offices where a lot of graphics
or photographs are being printed. If you are a home user, probably you will not
need a color laser printer. The high-end laser printers are capable of printing
good quality photographs but still none can reach the true photo quality of
high-end inkjet printers.

Once you choose between monochrome and color laser printer, you can decide
whether you need a personal or workgroup laser.

Personal Laser printers are suitable for text and simple graphics. Most of the
personal lasers in the market are monochrome laser printers. Because of their
high prices, the color laser printers were not attracting personal users. But as
some models with prices less than $1,000 have been released, color laser
printers are likely to be more popular among personal users too.

Small to Medium Workgroup Lasers are designed for small offices or workgroups
within large firms. In addition to the standard features, they have specific
features designed for multiple users such as larger input and output trays,
duplex (double-sided) printing, sorting, and stapling. They support printing
over networks (standard or optional). They also have fast processors and more
memory which enables them to handle multiple tasks at good speed. Most of the
workgroup laser printers are monochrome.

Whichever type of printer you choose, be sure to get one that has the features you will actually use. Do not overpay for a printer with excessive features you are never likely to use.

Resolution is one of the most important aspects of photo printing. You will need
a printer with a resolution of at least 1200 dpi. The higher the resolution, the
sharper and clearer your results will be.

The printers that use multiple ink cartridges (4 to 8 ink cartridges) provide a
better quality, crisp and clear pictures. They are also cheaper to maintain as
you have the chance to replace only the color that is empty. If you get the
additional gray ink cartridge, this will give you better quality rich blacks,
whites and grays. Some photo printers provide long lasting fade-resistant photo
prints that keep their colors for many years.

If you will make a lot of prints, speed will also be an important factor for
you. If that is the case, get a fast printer, though keep in mind that their
prices will be higher.

If you want to print your digital pictures without using a computer, than you
can select one of the many photo printers that have the direct printing from the
camera feature. Such photo printers have memory card slots and most are
compatible with the PictBridge technology. So you can use a PictBridge
compatible camera and print directly from these printers.

Remember to consider the paper handling features of the photo printer as well.
How much capacity does it have? Depending on how often you will print, you can
determine how many sheets your photo printer should hold. Usually personal
printers hold 100 to 300 sheets which is quite sufficient. Also find out what
kind of media the photo printer accepts. Can it print on thicker papers for
example? Some can print on envelopes. If you are willing to use different media
types such as postcards, envelopes, glossy photo papers, transparencies, or
iron-on transfer sheets, make sure to get one that accepts these kinds. Most
personal printers handle letter and legal size paper. Some printers also provide
double-sided printing.

Finally, make sure the technology your printer uses is compatible with your
computers technology. Most printers use USB interface, some still use the older
parallel port technology.

Read full Canon PIXMA iP4000 Printer Review
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Digital zoom is not really zoom, in the strictest definition of the term. What
digital zoom does is enlarge a portion of the image, thus 'simulating' optical
zoom. In other words, the camera crops a portion of the image and then enlarges
it back to size. This results in a loss of quality, and is no different than
cropping and enlarging an image with editing software. The benefit of using
image-editing software instead of the digital zoom on a camera is that you can
decide how much to crop, and how much to enlarge the image to where the quality
is acceptable to you. When you use digital zoom on the camera, the image quality
is irreversibly lost.

Cameras with a 2X-3x zoom lens have established themselves in the medium range.
In short, compare optical zoom and ignore digital zoom. Optical zoom
capabilities make all the difference in the final product. The higher the
optical zoom, the farther away from the subject you can be and still get a
great, clear, crisp quality shot.

Stay Close; get closer to your subject especially if it is small. Stay within 2
to 4 feet. Try not to get more than 5 feet away. You want the focus to be on
your subject. Zoom in, but do not get too close. Otherwise your pictures will not
look clear and they will be blurry.

Do not Place Subject in the Middle; move your subject from the middle of the
picture. Try keeping it on the side and make it more interesting. Give yourself
some time and try different sides. Lock the focus if you have an auto-focus
camera as it will most likely focus on the object in the middle.

Use of Flash; lighting is one of the most important aspects of a good picture.
It has a strong effect on your digital picture. Your camera has a certain flash
range which is usually less than 15 feet. This means that any digital picture
taken from more than 15 feet distance will be too dark. Try to use natural light
to give a brighter look on peoples faces. Change your angle to find the best
light. Try to reflect the daylight from the side, indirectly on your subject.
Then one side will be light and the other a little darker which will create a
meaningful expression. Early mornings or late afternoons are the best times to
catch a soft natural daylight for taking landscape pictures.

Be a Director; be active and take charge when taking your pictures. Move your
subjects if you do not like their position. Choose the location and place them
where you want, give them directions and your pictures will start looking more
interesting and attention-grabbing than ever.

Most photo printers come with photo software programs which are great tools to
edit and correct your digital pictures and get perfect results. Once you have taken your
digital pictures, you can archive and publish them on the web or print them (either
directly from digital camera or from pc).

Some photo printers come with programs, like EasyShare photo software that
adjust the resolution of your digital picture automatically, depending on
whether you're sending e-mail or printing. Others require you to change the
resolution yourself. Usually with these photo software programs you can edit
your digital pictures on your computer before you print them. You can adjust the
color balance, size, sharpness, brightness, contrast, and saturation.

Here are some of the most popular photo editing software programs. Except for
the Adobe Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro, they are free to download on the
internet.

Kodak EasyShare Software - A popular software program for editing, sharing and
printing your pictures that makes it even easier to organize, print and share
your digital pictures.

Irfan View – A simple program with which you can change the way your graphics
look, create slide shows, cut and crop your graphics and convert your graphics
and much more. Batch processing is available.

ADG Panorama Tools - A popular photo editing software that lets you generate,
edit & embed publish 360 degrees interactive panoramic composition on the Web
from a series of photos quickly and easily.

Photo Paper Saver - Convenient and easy-to-use photo editing software program
that helps you save on photo paper costs. Lets you make lots of photo reprints
quickly, easily, and save money at the same time. The program will automatically
layout all your different prints using the LEAST amount of space so you waste
less photo paper when you cut them out.

Albumatic - One of the easiest and fastest ways to get your photos on the Web is
by using this program. It can take your photos all the way from a scanner to
your Web site by itself. TWAIN and FTP support are built-in. MyAlbum is another
free program that is a picture cataloger for easily building digital photography
albums.

Adobe Photoshop – Advanced photography software program that is widely used by
graphic and Web designers, photographers, and video professionals. Most people
will do just fine by utilizing the free programs mentioned above. For the
information purposes, some key features of Photoshop include:

Color correction: improve the color, contrast, and dynamic range of any image
with a comprehensive set of professional color-correction tools.

Healing Brush: effortlessly remove dust, scratches, blemishes, wrinkles, and
other flaws with the Healing Brush.

Comprehensive 16-bit support: perform more precise editing and retouching with
expanded support for 16-bit images in core features, including layers, brushes,
text, shapes, and more.

Integrated digital camera raw file support: Get truer, higher quality output by
working with the complete raw data files from most major digital camera models.

File Browser tagging: protect your images by adding key copyright information in
the editable metadata panel of the File Browser.

The list price of Adobe Photoshop CS version is $540 - $670

Paint Shop Pro - A cheaper alternative to Adobe’s Photoshop. It costs $95.00 and
it’s quite efficient for photo editing. With this program you can do most of the
things that Adobe Photoshop can do.

Printers' speed is measured by the ppm (pages per minute); the number of pages a
printer can produce in one minute. Generally the speed increases as the price of
the printer increases. Normally printers have 3 levels of quality settings:
draft, normal, best. The higher the quality, the lower the speed. Bear in mind
that the speeds stated by the manufacturers are often higher than real life
speeds. While testing the speed, the manufacturers often print the basic text
with lowest print quality and come up with such fast speeds. The real speed is
likely to be nearly half the speed stated by the manufacturer if you use the
normal printing quality. Speed will especially be important for you if you
intend to print graphics frequently.

Print speeds may vary depending on many factors such as print mode, system
configuration, page coverage, document complexity and software.

So a typical inkjet’s print speed may vary between 1 to 28 ppm for black text
and 1 to 20 ppm for color photo or graphics. A mid-range monochrome laser’s
print speed may vary between 6 to 25 ppm for sharp black texts and 2 to 20 ppm
for black & white graphics. A typical color laser printer’s print speed will
vary between 6 to 20 ppm for black text and 1 to 12 ppm for color graphics.

Resolution is the maximum number of dots that a printer can print in a square
inch. In theory higher resolution will give better results. It will print more
details which is important especially when printing graphics. But as a marketing
trick, manufacturers inflate the resolution numbers and these numbers are not
the only factors in print quality. The ink cartridges or toner cartridges, the
number of colors, the paper and the method of printing are also great factors in
print quality.

Resolution is measured by the dpi (dots per inch) which indicates the maximum
number of dots that the laser or inkjet printer can print in a square inch. And
each of these dots in a digital photo is called pixels. A digital picture is
made up of thousands of pixels.

The resolution of an inexpensive inkjet printer will be between 1200 by 1200
dots per inch (dpi) to 2400 by 1200 dpi. And a higher-end inkjet printer will
have a resolution between 2400 by 1200 dpi to 4800 by 1200 dpi.

The resolution of a Personal Monochrome laser printer will be between 600 by 600
dpi to 1200 by 1200 dpi. And a workgroup laser printer will typically be 1200 by
1200 dpi.

The resolution of an inexpensive color laser printer will be between 1200 by 600
dpi to 2400 by 1200 dpi. And a higher-end color laser will have a resolution
between 2400 by 1200 dpi to 2400 by 2400 dpi. Although laser printers have lower
resolutions, they are quite sufficient in printing text and simple graphics.

In any case, it is best to print out a sample to test the real print quality of
the inkjet or laser printer rather than just looking at its resolution.