Photo Printer Paper
Photo Printer Paper
If you are into photography and want to print your own pictures, photo printer paper is the way to go. With a high gloss finish, this paper is better able to output in higher resolutions with no loss due to soaking ink like there is with regular printer paper.
Available in all different sizes, photo printer paper can be used with regular full size desktop PC printers, as well as new compact photo printers. These small units typically have an LCD screen and remove your PC from the photo-printing equation. You take your digital camera, and plug it into the compact printer, or remove the memory card and insert it into the printer. The LCD on the printer will show you the images and become your user interface instead of your PC.
Inkjet printers can leave smudges on certain types of photo printer paper. Make sure you read the packaging to see that it is “instant-dry” or “smudge-free” and inkjet compatible before you buy it.
The material used in this kind of paper is either a vinyl or polyester film, and can get very rigid. Therefore the printers that can optimally use photo printer paper tend to not use rollers to bring the paper into the print zone. Typically the paper is stored flat and enters the printing zone also flat, with the rollers designed to prevent the paper from bending. Then, the completed printed page is dropped flat onto the receiving tray. With high-quality inks and photo papers, the finished page should be just about dry when it lands in this tray. If not, you will have issues when the next page falls on top of it! Dye-based inks will take longer to dry and have much brighter colors. Pigment-based inks dry much quicker, making a sharper image, but the colors are not as bright.
The sizes for photo printing paper are 16.5in x 23.4in, 8.3in x 11.7in and 11.7in x 16.5in. Also available are more standard sizes: letter size and legal size are 8.5in x11in and 8.5in x 14in respectively; papers are usually available in packs of 20, 25, 50, 75,100 or 250 sheets and are available in both border and borderless variety.
High-quality photo printer paper is the answer for not only your favorite photographs and images, but anything you want to print in high resolution, because of its high finish and sheen. Colors will not fade or absorb into photo paper like they would with regular printer paper. Just make sure that your printer is setup with the right inks and the right paper for the job you want it to perform, and be sure to change that setup if you’re going to output something like regular text, for example.