Printers for Greeting Card & Graphic Crafts

Choosing a Good Printer

The key to a great quality computer craft project is the printer. There are several types of printers commonly available for home or small business use, the ink jet which comes in several varities, the laser, either color or just black, and speciality printers like dye sublimation which are still quite expensive to buy and operate.

Each has advantages and disadvantages. Color lasers have fallen in price and are sometimes cheaper than the inkjets. So they are no longer totally out of the question for the home crafter.

Ink Jet Printers

Ink jets work by spraying minute dots of ink on the paper. These dots blend together to form an image such as type, a graphic or a picture.

The reason that inkjets have gotten better is that the dots have gotten smaller and there are many more of them on a page. This allows even the cheapest printers to produce photo quality results.

There are many good, inexpensive photo quality ink jets available now. However, I've found that a printer that produces great photos does not necessarily produce great results with greeting cards and graphics. I really cannot explain this. I suspect it has something to do with the design of the ink heads.

It seems that many photo grade quality printers don't always accurately reproduce graphics and sometimes the register is off in the fine details. You just can't get the quality result you're looking for in your computer craft project.

I used to be a big fan of HP printers until I bought an OfficeJet. ALthough print quality was first rate, I had a lot of problems with the print head, a part separate from the ink tanks. I had to replace it twice and threw the printer away the third time it failed. The ink heads cost almost as much as the original printer.This has soured me somewhat on HP.

I have also done some research and learned that other brands can now produce the quality I need, sometime along with significant savings in ink costs.

Here are some of the most popular inkjet printers including those made by HP.

Color Laser Printers

Lasers work differently than ink jets. The technology involves electrostatic charges and heat. Lasers produce sharp, clear output at speeds that are usually better than you would see with an ink jet printer.

Laser printers don't use ink, but toners like a copier machine. The toner cartridges are relatively costly but long lasting. Consequently the operating cost of a laser can be less than that of an ink jet.

These printers used to be quite expensive and out of reach of the casual user. However, like everything else relating to computers, the cost has come down substantially - sometimes they cost less than some popular inkjet models. They are no longer out of the question to home users or crafters and can produce very high quality graphics. Laser copies are recommended for decoupage, for example, due to their ability to avoid ink bleed.

Click for a selection of color laser printers.

There is one thing to be aware of before you purchase a laser printer for your crafting needs. If you print a lot on card stock, curling of card stock is a much-reported problem with laser printers. Laser printers use heat to transfer toner to the paper. Curling occurs with lightweight paper too, but the paper relaxes back to normal as it cools.

As card stock curls around the printer head, it is literally ironed into a curled form. These steps should minimize or eliminate the curl.

• 1. In the printer features panel, be sure to select "card stock".
• 2. Weight the card stock after printing until it cools.
• 3. If your printer has a manual feed tray that allows the paper to feed straight through without curling around the printer head, use that.
• 4. Purchase card stock expressly designed for laser printers.
• 5. Reverse the curl by "printing" a blank page on the other side of the printed card stock.
• 6. Contact the manufacturer for suggestions specific to the printer you own.

For ink cartridges and toners for your printers, please visit, Ink & Cartridges: How to Save Money.

I have written many other articles about crafting by computer, the computer setup,ink and ink cartridges, computer greeting card and graphics programs and supplies I recommend. Please visit Computer Crafting, the gateway to all computer related articles on The Artful Crafter.