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Printers for Greeting Card & Graphic Crafts

HP Printers: The Best Choice

The key to a great quality computer craft project is the printer. There are two types of printers available, the ink jet and the laser.

Each has advantages and disadvantages. With color lasers falling in price, they are no longer totally out of the question for the home crafter, but it takes a pretty high volume of business to justify the extra cost, in my opinion.

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.

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 have owned various brands of computer printers over the years and right now have models made by HP, Canon and Epson. All three make great photos, but I have found that the HP printers have always produced better graphics, with truer color fidelity than the others. The fine lines that somehow get out of kilter on the other printers are always right on target when using HP printers.

Also, you can get better results in graphic printouts on lower quality settings with the HP computer printer models. By this I mean that I get a a better print job on a medium quality setting with the HP than I get on the highest print quality setting of the other manufacturer's printers. This saves ink, which you’ll find is your highest cost component in computer crafting.

Right now I am using a HP Model 5150 Desk Jet. This is a truly fine machine; especially considering its low initial cost. It makes outstanding photos, in addition to doing a first rate job on graphics and text.

It has a two ink drum design, which means you don’t have to replace the color cartridge if the black ink runs out or vice versa. You can switch out the black ink cartridge for a special photo quality cartridge that adds extra realism to your photos.

This model HP printer also seems to yield more pages per cartridge than my older HP printers did. It is fast and quiet.

This printer is still available, but time marches on. HP has come out with the HP Deskjet 6940 Color Printer This is the latest in their line of low-priced, high quality inkjet printers. It has been highly rated by both consumer and computer magazines.

For faster, high quality graphics printing, consider the slightly more expensive, Officejet Pro K5400. This printer uses four ink tanks, three for colored inks and one for black.

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.

The rub is the higher initial cost of the printer itself. Until recently these cost well in excess of a thousand dollars (and the commercial types still cost in the thousands).

HP, Canon and others have now brought the cost down to the two hundred dollar range. It is no longer out of the question to consider this type of printer, especially if you anticipate enough usage to warrant it. Here’s an example of a low cost color laser, the HP Color LaserJet 2600N Printer.

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.

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