Posts Tagged ‘dye-based ink’

Understanding Dye Based Ink

Thursday, January 20th, 2011

Understanding Dye Based Ink

Dye based ink is mainly used in digital printers because it is easier and cheaper to manufacture than pigment based ink. Dye based ink is water soluble, and produces images which are much more vibrant than what you would get from a pigment based ink.

One of the main drawbacks of dye based ink is fading. An image printed using dye based ink is much more likely to fade in the sun faster than a pigment ink based image. Dye based ink always takes longer to dry, this means if you remove the paper from the printer too quickly, you could end up with inky fingers and a smeared image! Even once dye based ink has fully dried on to the paper, if it comes in contact with water, it can still smear and blur.

If you have a colour inkjet printer, it’s very likely it will use dye based ink cartridges. Pigment based ink is really only used for black and white printing. Your inkjet printer may use pigment based ink in the black cartridge.

To decide which type of ink is most suited to your needs, you will need to access the type you printing you mostly do. If bright, vibrant colours are a priority, you should go for the dye based option. If longevity is most important, go with the pigment based ink cartridges.

Best Printers in 2010

Wednesday, May 26th, 2010

Best Printers in 2010

When we review printers we look at several different points, these being cost, functionality and practicality.

Below are some of the best new printers on the market in 2010 so far!

Lexmark Platinum Pro905

This is a well equipped and versatile all in one printer. It is very user friendly and flexible enough to handle most small business tasks. The printer is not one of the cheapest; the lowest price it can be found at is around £350. The is probably one of the most expensive printers of this type currently on the market, you will have to have the need to use all of it’s facilities to justify the high price tag, although the low monochrome printing costs should help high volume users.

Canon Pixma MX870

This printer is one of the best choices currently available for small business owners. It has good speed and huge array of features, but it’s the print quality that makes this such an attractive all in one option. You will need plenty of space for this printer, as it is quite large. One of the most important new features on this printer is the Windows 7 support. This printer takes 5 ink cartridges, a pigment based black and a dye-based black to ensure high quality prints. You can currently purchase this printer for around £150.

Dell V515W

This is a wireless all in one printer which contains a 35 page automatic feeder and produces professional image quality for your documents and photos. It also has an Eco friendly mode, which allows you to dim the LCD screen when you printer is inactive for more than 2 minutes and also a power sage feature which turns the printer off after 10 minutes of inactivity.

Canon Pixma MX350

This all in one printer contains a 2.5 inch LCD and a ‘Dual Colour Gamut Processing Technology’, this feature allows you to have vibrant photocopies of original documents and images. You can also use this printer to print wirelessly from your iPod touch devices as well as the iPhone and 3G and 3GS. The Canon PIXMA MX350 is a competent printer that has features that will benefit a small office. It’s easy to use thanks to a well thought out button layout and both text and photo prints exhibit no major flaws.

Dell V313W

This is a wireless all in one printer that has the ability to print borderless photos. It also has copier and scanning capabilities. This is a relatively small printer compared to other rivals; it has a 2 line text LCD display screen that can serve you with most of your printing needs. This printer offers print speeds of up to 33 pages per minute in black and 30 pages per minute in colour, and copy speeds of up to 25 pages per minute in black and 21 pages per minute in colour. This printer can be bought for around £60.

Canon iP2702

This printer is reasonably priced at around £40 and will perform all of your basic printing needs effortlessly. The design of the printer is clean and unfussy, and it can print on sizes down to 15 x 10cm. Canon provides basic but useful support software with the PIXMA iP2702, this includes the Easy-Photo Print and Easy-Web Print utilities. There’s no doubt you can get good quality print from the PIXMA iP2702. There’s also little doubt that it’s a basic device, a bit pricey to run and it is not the quietest printer out there!

Lexmark Intuition S505

The Lexmark Intuition S505 is a multi-function colour inket printer with scanning and copying facilities. The Lexmark Intuition S505 is very close to being a very good printer. But it is perhaps a little slow, and the price tag a touch too high. The duplex is also a little disappointing. Wait for the Lexmark Intuition S505 to fall close to the £100 mark and it’ll be well worth snapping up.

Pigmented Ink Vs Dye Based Ink

Tuesday, May 25th, 2010

Pigmented Ink Vs Dye Based Ink

When the time comes to replace your printer, the last thing most people think of is the type of ink the printer uses. This is a very important factor and should not be overlooked. We use our printers for producing various kinds of documents, text, graphics, photos and others, different printing jobs require different printer inks.

There are two main choices in printer inks; these are dye-based inks and pigmented inks. You may be wondering what the differences are between these two different types of ink and which printer ink is the better choice, read on….

The first thing we need to look at in differentiating dye-based ink from pigment ink is the substances that go into them. Pigment ink is made with resin or binders that make them more resistance. Dye-based ink is made with optical brighteners to make the colours more vivid and vibrant. In short, pigment ink is more resistant to the elements where as dye-based ink will produce a more vivid life like image but may not withstand the test of time as well.

1. Water resistance

Dye-based ink needs to be dissolved in order to work. Inkjet printers mainly use dye-based inks because they easily dissolve in water and flow easily. However, if a print is made from dried dye-based ink and the print gets wet, then the ink will run. On the other hand, pigmented inks will absorb water but do not dissolve with it; therefore they are a lot more water resistant!

2. Light resistance

Dye-based ink contains optical brighteners which produce very vivid bright prints. These optical brighteners are vulnerable to light and other chemicals, and therefore tend to fade more quickly. Pigmented ink is the top choice if you are archiving prints because it lasts for years, even under light or chemical exposure.

3. Sharpness of colour

Dye-based inks are the best option if you require sharp, bright and vivid images. They are better suited for printing images and photographs. The same cannot be said for pigmented ink, and they are more limited to grayscale prints and black text documents.

Now we know the pros and cons between each type of ink, but we need to know which printer brands are dye-based and which are pigmented, see below for a brief overview.

It is also important to remember that the type of paper you use can also affect the longevity of the print.

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