THE NEWS IN PRINT

With the emergence of digital cameras, the traditional ones have taken a back seat or have stagnated in the hands of professionals. While most like to print their photos at home, there are others like me who prefer online stores which prints pictures and have it shipped. At some geographies, printing from a store could be much cheaper and quality-wise, a safer option. But, online printing has a bigger reach and hence bound to have the latest in technology and reasonable pricing.

Here are some popular online photo printing websites which provide prints to your doorstep:

Fotki: An extremely popular photo printing website. Great quality and reasonable pricing. A 4"� X 6"� digital print costs less than 5 pennies. This site also provides photo hosting for websites, emails and blogs. It also provides social networking and video sharing features.

Shutterfly: An average photo printing website. Expensive at 10 pennies for a 4"� X 6"� print. The first 15 prints are free. Other services like photo books, index prints, calendars, greeting cards and photo CDs make them one of the giants in this industry.

Snapfish: Owned by HP. It was popular even before HP took over. Good professional service. The first 20 prints are free and subsequent ones cost 6 pennies for a 4"� X 6"� print. Quality is excellent. You can also pick up printed photos at retail stores like Jessops. Truly a giant with a big heart.

Kodak Easy Share Gallery: A proprietary of Kodak Eastman Company. It was previously known as Ofoto. Just like their printers, they provide excellent prints, probably the best in business. The first 20 prints are free and subsequent ones are charged 8 pennies for each print.

As the sale of digital cameras rise, the online photo industry is bound to explode with many more photo printing websites. It's always good for the consumer to have umpteen choices.

The age of exposing films using an optical camera has seen the door; maybe forever. Digital cameras have revolutionized the photo industry by its ease of capturing pictures and the simplicity involved in printing them. Printing digital photos mostly takes place at homes where professional quality is achieved by the printers available in the market. Cliff Smith from Trusted Reviews has written an excellent guide / tutorial that explain briefly about digital photo printers, techniques it involves, preservation and the print sizes for digital prints.

As I read the article, I felt a need to write an abridged version for our readers. I feel that the sections covered below are helpful to most.

There are two main types of photo printers; inkjet printers and dye sublimation printers. Inkjet printers have existed for quite a long time now and it contains ink cartridges containing several colours. The process of ink flow from the cartridge to photo paper differs from one manufacturer to another. Epson, Canon, HP and Lexmark are some examples of inkjet photo printers. Dye sublimation printers have a ribbon that carries colour panels. Ink is transferred from the ribbon onto the photo paper by the application of heat. Kodak printers use this technology on their digital photo printers. It has been observed that the quality between the two types of printers is similar although dye sublimation printers offer cheaper prints and are fade resistant.

The most popular photo size is perhaps 6 X 4 inches. This size worked the best with snapshot cameras as they had an aspect ratio of 3:2. But digital cameras work on a different aspect ratio of 4:3 and the 6 X 4 inches photo size is far from ideal. But, manufacturers are not manufacturing photo size papers that suits digital cameras the best, as they fear that setting a new standard in the industry might not work to their advantage.

How big is big enough?

For perfect photo quality, your digital images should be printed at a resolution of around 300 pixels per inch, or 120 pixels per centimetre. This means that if you want a photo quality 6 x 4in (15 x 10cm) print, your digital image needs to be at least 1800 x 1200 pixels, which is roughly 2.2 megapixels. A4 paper is 21.0cm x 29.7cm, so for perfect photo quality A4 prints your digital image needs to be at least 2520 x 3564 pixels, which is just under nine megapixels. Even if you routinely print all your photos out at A4 size, you still don't need a 12-megapixel camera.

It might sound stale but it's true; our environment is dwindling due to printing. Printing leads to deforestation in short and deforestation rises the atmospheric temperature which is popularly known as Global Warming. During my general browsing, I came across an article that suggests steps to ensure green printing.

Here are the highlights of the article:

- Purchase and promote usage of recycled paper. Recycled paper saves trees, landfill space and reduces water and energy consumption.
- Ink contains volatile organic compounds. When unused ink or printed paper is dumped into landfills, it can cause cancer and induce birth defects. Soy inks are an excellent alternative to the regular ink we get at stores.
- Reduce printing by accommodating digital copies in your daily usage. Print if it's absolutely necessary.
- There are alternative kinds of paper available made of blue jeans, synthetic papers and Terraskin made of ground stone.
- Educate others regarding green printing. Not everyone would stumble over green printing articles like I did.
- The most important point: practice what you preach. Just don't say it; do it.
- Eliminate glue as much as possible. This is only possible with some creativity. An obvious example would be to bind a book using spirals rather than glue and presser.

The future of printing is obviously in the hands of printer companies who make up the bulk of printing. Green printing would definitely be an uncomfortable word for many but for us to be comfortable in the future; we need it as much as we need oxygen and water.

Lexmark is planning on taking the printer battle to a new domain where cables do not matter anymore. While HP, Kodak and Epson fight it out for the top spot, Lexmark predicts that the way to the pinnacle is by going wireless. I had previously discussed on the 12 Wi-Fi Lexmark printers that was in line to get released in the market. Lexmark's General Manager for Middle East has predicted that consumers would prefer to go mobile and hence would opt for a wireless solution.

"When we see the trends in the wireless space, the one missing ingredient from the mix is printing. [Modern] work patterns show that customers - whether based in homes or offices - are becoming increasingly mobile and are now demanding more flexible printing options. With our new range of colour laser printers, we can now offer users the ease of portability, combined with high quality print performance"�

Wireless printing solution seems to be a practical solution for homes and small offices. But for IT firms who deal with confidential data, anything to do with Wi-Fi might not be an amicable solution as of now. The concentration for many such companies would be to secure data and reduce costs.

via Arabian Business

Dell Corporation, leading PC manufacturer has claimed that many firms are wasting money on their procured printers. Many firms overestimate their printing needs and hence spend on high end printers that end up being underused; A3 printers in particular which is extremely expensive.

Dell says that, on average, 60% of the documents that are printed in businesses are A4 mono, 20% A4 colour, 17% photocopies and just 3% are A3.It gleaned the results from its printer management software. "Most customers believe they are printing significantly greater amounts of A3 documents and photocopies," says Dion Smith, imaging sales manager at Dell.

Smith claims that firms buy printers on a department basis which means that most organizations have 60 different types of printers and 115 different types of printers. This will deem to be expensive as ink cartridges and toners go waste if not used on a regular basis. Smith suggests that firms should centralize the printing procurement process or have a list of printers which could be used throughout the company.

The firm that I work for is bent towards cost reduction program (CRP) which has seen many printers taken off the floor and yet our printing needs have been met with centralized printers. According to me, most companies can do with mono A4 sized printers.

via PC Pro