Depending on how you approach your scrapbooking hobby or business, deciding on how you want to do digital scrapbook printing will guide you in selecting a home printer to considering help from a professional company for your printing needs. Even if you have your photos printed commercially, the need for a good home printer for your digital scrapbook printing work is still necessary. You would probably be comfortable with a trusted brand.
If you are going to do your own printing, knowing about certain formats will help you in your selection. Three of some formats that will be looked at here are 12 x 12,
8.5 x 11, and photo printers. This article will address both the pros and cons of these printer types.
Affordable printers, at one time, did not include the capability of accommodating the traditional scrapbooking layout size of 12 x 12. Today a few printers exist that can do this. Two of those are the Epson 1280 and the R1800; printers considered the best for any printing need. In addition, scrapbook stores are available to print the 12 x 12 inch pages because of Epson Scrapbook Central workstations.
In the 8.5 x 11 format, you have a wider choice in printers. While Epson still tops the list because of its inks and papers, you can discover other good models from which to choose. Regular printers usually cost around $80 and are just as good as more printers that are expensive. The printers with the bigger price tag do print faster, but the quality of print is usually the same.
Photo printers print photos specifically. Compared to regular printers, photo printers are slow. With the photo printer, you do want to obtain a faster one and quality in print is noticeable between the photo printer and a regular printer.
You can get better color with inkjet printers over laser printers because this is where inkjet is better whereas laser printers are about speed and quantity. If you are looking at the inkjet printers, one indicator in image quality is in the complete number of inks used in the printer. The more colors of inks, the better quality you have. With individual inks, you only replace what runs out first. With a whole color set, the whole cartridge is tossed in the garbage because one color goes out on you. When you think about it, that method gets wastefully expensive. With digital scrapbook printing, you probably want to save every penny you have, so choose wisely.
Let us say that you are doing a page or several pages, but you do not know quite how you want to put it together or you are not sure you have a lot of time to put into it. Companies, such as Shutterfly, have popped up to help you out. I am sure somewhere along the line there is a cost to it, otherwise companies like these would not be, but, it is free to sign up and they offer some helpful services. Shutterfly is said to be flexible and affordable as an option for scrappers who want to put their memories together and share. They offer high-quality printing and a choice of scrapbook sizes and prices. In addition to the scrapbook, Shutterfly offers projects like calendars, snapbooks, and cards. The basic steps of operation for Shutterfly and similar organizations are 1. Upload your digital designs and 2. Drag and drop into a blank photo book and order.
What you use for your digital scrapbook printing needs depends on what you want to do. However, you can choose from these basic choices available.
