I’m going to start this installment of Framed and Exposed by ticking off the camera vendors.
Although vendors will claim the superiority of their technologies, from camera sensors to lens designs, at the mid- to high-end of the digital camera market, it’s getting increasingly difficult to detect significant quality differences from one camera to another. Sure, some do much better at higher ISOs than others, while others might default to particular color characteristics, but overall, if you buy a mid- to high-end camera, you’re going to get great image quality.
The same cannot be said for printing your images from these cameras. While photo-printing technology has advanced almost as quickly as digital camera technology, there’s still quite a variation in quality from one model and technology to the other. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a real loser from a reputable vendor, but there are still many image quality considerations that can influence your buying decision.
These days, photo printing has shaken out to two main technologies, inkjet and dye sublimation. While dye sublimation has strong points, inkjet remains the better technology for photo printing, and so will be the focus of this discussion.
As with any buying decision, choosing a printer is a process of narrowing the field of available options based on your needs and budget. I’m assuming you want the best possible photo printing quality you can buy, and so are using that as your main criteria for printer evaluation. Obviously, there’s still the question of what you can afford.
Counting Inks
While most general-purpose desktop inkjets provide four colors for printing (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black), photo printers often include six, seven, or eight different ink colors. These additional colors usually include lighter shades of magenta and cyan, though some printers augment their basic four primaries with additional reds or greens, and sometimes additional black inks.
With the extra colors, the printer can create finer gradients, especially in the highlight areas, making for images that look more like true continuous-tone prints. Extra colors also give the printer a boost when trying to print brighter hues that are hard to mix from just four primaries. Extra black or gray cartridges can improve grayscale printing, as well as shadow tones and black areas in color prints.
However, just as more megapixels don’t necessarily mean better pictures from a camera, more inks don’t necessarily mean better prints from a printer.
For example, by using smaller-sized droplets of ink, a four-color printer can often manage as smooth a gradient as an eight-color printer packed with special inks. Because of their smaller dot size, these printers can spray down a much finer, densely packed gradation. As such, there are four-color printers that are capable of displaying smoother transitions and gradients than printers with extra inks. But these printers often can’t match the richness of gamut you can get from a printer with extra inks.
Longevity
In addition to number of inks, consider the type of ink. Inkjet printers use either dye-based inks or pigment-based inks. Dye-based inks typically have a wider gamut, but pigment-based inks are considered to last longer without color shifts.
Archival quality is important if you want to produce images that are light- and color-fast, either for sale, or because they will be displayed in an area that receives strong direct sunlight.
It’s difficult to measure an ink’s longevity, of course, because in the end, only time will tell how long a print can last. The generally accepted benchmark for archival durability are the tests performed by Wilhelm Imaging Research, an independent company that publishes durability reports for specific printer and ink combinations. You can read their reports for free on the company’s site.
Just a couple of years ago, if you wanted archival quality, you had to go with a pigment-based printer. Many of today’s dye-based inkjets can deliver a print life that’s well over 35 years. This is far beyond what you’d get with most traditional, chemical-based photo-developing processes.
Pigment-based inks still yield the highest durability ratings, with claims of anywhere from 85 to 200 years. Some of these claims should be taken with a grain of salt, though, because while the ink may in fact last 100 years with minimal fade or color shift, your paper may crumble.
If durability is your primary concern, go with a pigment-based system. However, as we’ll see, there can be a price to pay for pigment-based inks.
Image Quality
Once you’ve zeroed in on a few models that fit your budget, it’s time to start comparing image quality. Printer features (such as built-in card readers) are important, and you should weigh those in your decision, but your primary arbiter should always be image quality. Carefully examining print samples will help you further refine your options.
Ideally, you want to look at the same image printed on a variety of printers. Bring your own paper so that variable doesn’t affect results. If your local store doesn’t have the printers in question, or if they won’t let you print your own sample prints, you’ll have to settle for whatever samples they can provide. When evaluating images, consider the following issues.
Detail. You don’t want to spend money for high-quality lenses, only to have all of your fine detail lost when you print. With their high resolutions and tiny dot sizes, modern photo inkjets can do a very good job with extremely fine detail. Try to assess how well each printer renders small details. Are any details lost? Are they aliased along the edges?
Color quality. This is a subjective comparison, but valuable nonetheless. Is there a difference in overall color quality from one printer to the next? Do some prints look muddier or more muted than others? Are colors wildly wrong? How’s the overall color tone in the image? Do different colors print equally well? Does the printer do a better job in highlights, midtones, or shadows?
Color gamut. Because of differences in the number of inks, formulation of inks, driver sophistication, and many more factors, different printers produce very different color results. You may have caught some of the changes in the previous step. Now you’re concerned about gamut, or range of color. You’ll probably find that printers with more inks are able to print a broader range of colors, particularly brighter colors. Pay close attention to reds and greens, and to some blues. You’ll most likely find the dye-based printers scoring a little better in this concern.
Color accuracy. This issue is a little more complicated, as it involves software issues, calibration, and proper use of a variety of settings. If you have the opportunity, test your potential printers in a calibrated setup using valid ICC profiles. If you can’t do this but do plan on running a calibrated system, check the printers’ specs to make sure they provide the necessary profiles.
Banding and posterizing. Do you notice banding artifacts? These will be subtle, but look closely in the extremes of your image – very bright highlights and deep shadows. Chrome reflections and specular highlights are also good places to check. Clouds and bright skies can band or posterize, and have visible dot patterns.
Metamerism. Mostly a problem with pigment-based inks (and largely resolved in modern ink sets), metamerism causes colors to exhibit slight hue changes in different lights. Try to get a look at your sample prints under a couple of different light sources, such as fluorescent and tungsten.
Bronzing. Tilt the printed page around. If you notice areas of black, dark green, or blue appearing to go more “flat,” then the printer has a problem with bronzing. Bronzing will make darker areas look almost as if they’ve been varnished, resulting in a print that has varying degrees of glossiness across its surface. Some vendors get around bronzing issues by adding a glossy overcoat to the entire image. The degree of bronzing may vary among paper types.
Black. Some pigment-based inks have trouble yielding deep blacks. This can result in lower contrast overall, and weak shadow areas. As with many other image quality issues, the degree of black trouble can vary from paper to paper.
What’s Next?
Don’t worry if you can’t quantify why one image looks better than another. There are many subtle factors that influence image quality.
After you’ve found printers with the best image quality, it’s time to compare printer features. We’ll explore printer features in the next Framed and Exposed.
This article was last modified on December 14, 2022
This article was first published on March 23, 2005
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