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General discussion

buying a new printer

Nov 16, 2005 3:55AM PST

Hi! I am thinking of buying a new printer, but I have never really been happy with any printer since I started working with graphics. I use Ulead's PhotoImpact to create most of my graphics. I made my own Christmas cards last year from a picture I "painted", but that was the last time my printer worked right in printing colors. I would like to continue to do that, as well as other cards, and perhaps print cards for others. I also was interested in trying some fine art type printing. I have not got very much money to spend and but have a real need to work from home due to a special needs child. Do you have any suggestions for a printer that might fill my needs? Most reviews seem to be based on printing photographs rather than original art. Thank you for your help....Susan

Discussion is locked

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Well, one question...
Nov 16, 2005 2:44PM PST

Hi, Susan, can you tell me why your printer stopped printing properly? Or what exactly it did? Appreciate it...

Thanks, Paul

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What happened with current printer...
Nov 20, 2005 1:38AM PST

Last Christmas I printed all of my Christmas and birthday cards (have a ton of Dec. birthdays, sigh), and they turned out fairly good even with two-sided printing and the envelopes too; the color came out reasonalby close to what I had created in PhotoImpact, using original artwork. I went thru alot of ink, which made them a little more expensive than I would have normally spent, but enjoyed ''showing off'' my artwork and ability to create things. When I went to make some birthday cards in spring, I found the colors were off, but managed to ''make do'', by limiting the colors used to strictly primaries. When I tried again later in the summer to print some more of my artwork, there seemed to be no way to get ANY of the colors right....red was purple blue non-existant, yellow all over the place and even black wasn't black...the more I tried the worse it got. I tried cleaning and cleaning, and still no go...until the ink ran out, and I could not afford to keep buying ink and not getting the right colors. My current non-working printer is an Epson Stylus Photo820. Have had a Cannon in the past and an HP, but both were all-in-ones, and had poor graphic output, as well as other problems. Hope this helped. I think what I need to know is whether to go inkjet or laser, when I mostly plan on printing artwork and graphics. Thanks, Susan

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Hi Susan
Nov 20, 2005 1:04PM PST

Well, first of all, if ink cartridges have sat too long, they can coagulate in a way.You were probably getting only some color from some and too much from another. At this point the cartridge is usless and cleaning will not help. The reason I mention this is you said "in the spring" "in the summer". I have seen this happen quite often when someone will leave a printer set, not use it for a while, and the cartridges become usless. If not being used for a long time, I recommend taking them out, turning them upside down and putting an adhesive strip on them , nothing with too much "stick to it" like duct tape. Store them that way (upside down) and if months later you want to print, you clean the ends and put them back in, do a test run and should work. (I mention this in case you are happy with your printer)

As far as Ink jet or laser, Here is a very interresting link you should read...
http://www.smallbusinesscomputing.com/testdrive/article.php/3521141

I understand where you would want good quality, I have many paintins which i do with artrage and have some on their site and having a 20 dollar lexmark printer , well let's just say they will stay on the pc for now! Take care, Paul