So, before you go and spend your money, here are some tips on what you must keep in mind while deciding on a digital photo printer. Firstly, digital photo printers are available in two basic types. There are 4-color printers and 6-color printers. Nowadays, there are even 8-color printers available. So, the higher the number of colors the better will be the photo quality once you have hit the print file button.

Using good quality photo paper and one of the 8 color printers will give you results that rival your photo lab.Secondly, the printing method used by the printer is also very important. There are 2 main printing methods: inkjet and thermal. Inkjet is commonly used for taking photo prints but the quality of the printout is not excellent. You need to have at least a 6-color printer to get decent print quality. Also, the ink cartridges are quite expensive and the biggest disadvantage is that inkjet printing does not provide a waterproof coating to the images.

Hence, the color fades after some time. Thermal printing, on the other hand, is much better since it not only applies a waterproof coating but is also better quality-wise. It is also more cost effective as the paper and ink cartridges used are cheaper. Most of these printers can be purchased under $500. However, there are few key characteristics that are different in all these printers which determine their price.These are : ?The printing width differs amongst printers.

Normally the width is either 8.5" or 13". The highest quality printers will allow you to go larger but at a much higher per print cost.?If you want to print really great looking black-and-white images, then the printer needs to have grey inks as well. So, an 8-color printer would be best suited for this purpose. ?Whether your printer has separate ink tanks for each color or does it have multiple inks in each cartridge. If you have multiple inks, then you have to replace the entire cartridge even if one color finishes.

Hence, it is more expensive to replace such cartridges and you waste a lot of ink as well. ?The ability of the printer to print directly from your camera or a memory card through a link. ?The printing speed per minute. This can go up to 10 minutes for a colored snap, so you must properly check this out depending upon our usage. Multi use printers are great for a busy office or household but if you want to make fine prints out of your digital images you should invest in a dedicated digital camera printer or digital photo printer.

Look for models that will take the most popular memory cards straight into the printer without having to load the images into your computer..

The development of cheap digital cameras has made printing of pictures without the aid of PCs a possibility. Unlike the technique mentioned above which still use PCs to edit the images, printers like the Epson Stylus Photo 785EPX photo printer can produce good-quality digital photos without using computers. Printing is easy as you only need to insert the camera's digital media card and presto you have your photo.Why make your own prints?Control:you get exactly what you wantConvenience:You don't have to take film to a shop, then return to pick it up, then make more trips for enlargements.Cost: Making your own prints is cheaper Quality: New printer classes can make outstanding outputsYour ChoiceOf course the choice will ultimately be yours whether you opt to use PCs to edit your images or to print them directly. After all it will be your handiwork..

"Now with these prices there is no reason to ordr prints from anywhere else or to even print my own. With the cost of ink for my printer and high-quality glossy photo paper, I can't even do it myself for that price!"About the Fotki.comFotki.com is an ad-free digital-photo web portal representing an online-service suite providing sharing of digital images with unlimited storage space, high-quality photo printing at low cost, and online selling of photos. Fotki.com web site is user-friendly and compatible with all mainstream operating systems; its features include a P2P software tool - personal Fotki server, and co-branding - a means to create a personal website with Fotki or to integrate any of user's Fotki pages into another site of his own. Fotki's basic accounts are free; and its multiple advanced online services are offered for a small annual fee. Founded in 1998 as a privately held company located in New York City, owned and operated by Fotki Inc., Fotki.com is now a consistently profitable business and a top-10 photo-sharing site in the world..

If you go to a local car lot and look at the sticker price of a car, you'd see some of the following items: the base price of the car, the cost for each additional feature or package, the number of miles per gallon for both city and road, and the cost of gasoline for one year under normal driving conditions.What if you got this same type of information for your printer? Would you still buy the same inkjet printer? How would you feel if you knew you would pay more for gas and oil, in the first year you owned your car, than you paid for the car?Well the fact is, unless you do very little printing, you will pay more for your paper and inkjet cartridges in the first year than you will pay for your inkjet printer. This is especially true for the low cost inkjet printers. In some cases, the cost of one inkjet cartridge is more than the entire purchase price of an inkjet printer.If you look at an inkjet printer advertisement, you'd learn about some of the following items: the number of pages printed per minute in text and color, the time to print a certain size photo in black and white or color, the number of inkjet cartridges or tanks the printer holds, the near perfect quality of the photo reproduction, the outstanding resolution you'll get from (so many) inkjet nozzles and a packaging list of items that come in the box when you purchase it. However, in most inkjet printer advertisements, you will not see the cost of the premium paper needed to achieve that outstanding photo reproduction. The replacement cost for a black or color inkjet cartridge is nowhere to be found.

About the only thing you will see with a dollar sign is the low purchase price of the printer and possibly the rebate. (They also don't tell you all the steps you have to follow to get your rebate and how it may prevent you from returning the printer to the store if something unexpected happened? but that's another story.)Now, if you look at some of the most popular inkjet printers, here's what you will find about their inkjet cartridges. On the average, a black inkjet cartridge costs between $22 and $30 to replace. A color printer cartridge normally runs between $35 and $60, depending on size.To get your inkjet printer to print out those outstanding photos that will last for years, you will need to purchase some premium quality paper. Depending on the size, weight and quantity of the premium paper, you can expect to pay from 60 cents to a dollar per page.As a consumer, you need to know that the major printer manufacturers are selling their inkjet printers at or below cost.

They have adopted the marketing practice used in other industries, like the cell phone or razor blade. That is, they sell their initial product at cost or below and expect to make their real profits on the high mark up of their consumable supplies or services.Now, don't get me wrong. The quality of the inkjet printer photo reproductions is approaching that of traditional photo processing. The speed of the inkjet printer is constantly rising. The crisp and clear text from the inkjet printer is nearly equal to the quality of laser print.

All these are wonderful and welcomed features. The main point I want to make is this: The real cost of printing is not the purchase price of the inkjet printer. You, the consumer, should be informed of the on-going or real cost of printing. Then, you can decide how much you really want to pay for your printing needs.If major printer manufacturers were to charge a reasonable price (with profit) for their inkjet printer and reduce the cost of their inkjet cartridges and premium paper, you would realize a substantial savings.A well-informed consumer is a wiser consumer. If you had a way to estimate the one year cost of printing, depending upon your needs, you'd be able to make a much better informed decision on what inkjet printer would best meet your needs.Until the major manufacturers change their marketing practices, you can do something about the high cost of printing.

There are many reputable online merchants that provide compatible inkjet cartridges and inkjet refill kits that can save you up to 85% on the cost of printing. Five minutes of your time reviewing some of these companies could save you hundreds and even thousands of dollars. That would definitely help you reduce your one-year cost of printing. I thought you needed to know..

These are: ? Fine-pitch Vision Alignment Option for more precise alignment for boards with ultra-fine pitch devices ? Enhanced functionality to Teach Custom Ball Grid Array (BGA) Devices for 2D Inspection and store these device patterns in a device library for easy retrieval Two additional enhancements, which provide for improved process monitoring and reduced operator Mean Time to Assist (MTTA), are: ? Offline programming capability using CAD or Gerber data via Aegis Industrial Software Corporation's CircuitCAM Machine Programming software. CircuitCAM Machine Programming modules radically reduce machine programming time for through-hole and surface mount production, inspection, and process machine interfaces. ? Off-line monitoring capability using iMonitor software, a feature-rich reporting and performance analysis tool, providing completely browser-based remote monitoring by station, machine, line, factory or the entire enterprise ? over a Web or network connection. iMonitor is also available from Aegis Industrial Software Corporation.In addition, the software release now meets the newest industry standard for information transfer - XMLprotocol. The CAMX interface enables the software to seamlessly communicate printer operation messages to a host computer for system monitoring as well as provide for the easy interchange of data with other XML-based software throughout the production facility."The enhancements provided by our latest software upgrade strengthen and broaden the production, operational, and communication capabilities of the AccuFlex system as the leading printing solution delivering maximum efficiency, quality, and throughput for the SMT industry," said Bob Boyes, product manager for MPM Printers.The software upgrade is available immediately for both new and installed Speedline MPM AccuFlex printers.

For more information, contact your Speedline distributor or representative. Reach Speedline Technologies at 1-508-8520-0083 or http://www.speedlinetech.comAbout Speedline TechnologiesSpeedline Technologies is the global leader for single-source process knowledge, solutions, and service to the PCB assembly and semiconductor packaging industries. Based in Franklin, Massachusetts, USA, the company sells five, best-in-class brands ? Accel microelectronics cleaning, Camalot dispensing systems, Electrovert wave soldering, reflow soldering, and cleaning equipment, MPM stencil and screen printing systems, and Protect global services, support, and training solutions. For more information, visit us at http://www.speedlinetech.comNote to Editors: High resolution photo images are available on request..

The scheme also allows us to reconnect with Markpoint users who have exceptional brand loyalty."For easy editing, high/low resolution images are on the web at www.ainsmag.co.uk/im217/3512im1a.htm.

Most digital cameras sold today have the capability of making a decent print even on the lowest resolution. Of course if you want a better print you need to use a higher resolution on your camera.I won't go into resolution settings here because everybody has their ownidea of what their perfect resolution is and my inbox would be flooded. :-)My point with this article is to get people to use the right printer setting ifthey want great photo prints. If you try using regular 20 lb bond paper using the printers general settings you will be very disappointed with the results.Get some good quality glossy paper and try this test. Make a print on regular paper using general settings.

Then make one with your printer set to glossy paper using high quality mode and compare. The first will look like a water colored newspaper picture. The second will look like you just got it back from Kodak!This is not news to a lot of you but a surprising number of people readingthis will suddenly go "hhhmmmmm, that explains some things"..

The heat causes the ink in the ink cartridge nozzle to bubble and then burst, spraying the ink on to the printer paper. The other technology uses a crystal, often a piezo crystal, that changes shape with the application of electricity. The change of shape causes the ink to be placed on to the paper. This process does not heat the ink. This technology is used by one of the biggest printer brands in the business.Both processes have their strong points and generally produce excellent results..

Thus they are solely for the reason of getting the images into physical paper with a high degree of perfection and elevated quality. In these printers the ink and paper are by and large sold together in single boxes, and the average print costs to around 30 to 70 cents. However the biggest advantage remains that these printers themselves are inexpensive.Looking at the advantages of these digital camera printers, the very first and the most significant one is that these printers do not require a computer for their functioning. They have the ability of printing directly from the digital camera, which enables the users to take and use them on the road too! A few examples of such great printers are Canon's Selphy DS700 and CP330; the Olympus P-10; Sony's FP30 and EX50; Epson's Picture Mate; and Hewlett-Packard's Photo smart 375. Some digital cameras nowadays enable the users to connect them directly to a PictBridge printer using a standard USB cable.

And then obtain the printed photographs. Another loom is to include memory-card slots right on the printer as a result the users do not run down the camera's battery while printing.The above discussion reveals almost all the rudimentary yet important information regarding the digital camera printers and it is expected that more and more users of the digital cameras would appreciate this fantastic device!.

Printing is in high resolution at 200 dpi with a 300 dpi option.???Programming is easy. For a single station this can take place directly on PC. Nova thermal printers also have multiple connectivity for remote programming and integration with on-site or multi-site quality and process control systems such as SAP. Connection ports include RS232, USB and Ethernet, with an option to fit a bi-directional Centronics port if required.???For low to medium capacity thermal printing Imaje also offers the Compact range of thermal printers. One of the smallest printers on the market, they are also built for industrial use and offer similar flexibility and connectivity.

The Compact Mobile is a unit that can be fitted to a forklift for even greater productivity in labelling as products are picked from the racks.???Nova and Compact printers are used within the transport and logistics industries by such companies as Royal Mail, DHL, TNT and Fed Ex. Previously distributed under the brand name Markpoint, all Nova equipment is fully supported by Imaje UK with competitive service packages covering labour, parts, unlimited call outs and a four hour response to most areas of the UK.???Nova thermal printers are part of a complete range of marking solutions from Imaje that embrace ink jet, laser and thermal technology, for marking product, primary, secondary and tertiary packaging.For easy editing, high/low resolution images are on the web at www.ainsmag.co.uk/im217/3400im1a.htm.