Toshiba Recycles Your Toner Right on the Spot

If you own a laser printer and ever did an online shopping for printer toner cartridges, you, probably, noticed here and there a waste bottles being sold along with consumables. These very bottles are where unused tone is utilized when not applied to form image. That happens because of mechanism of laser printing is not perfect and yet to be optimized.

Toshiba intends to eliminate this embarrassing flaw. The company is implementing its recyclable toner technology into more MFP machines. The technology allows collecting waste toner that is not applied to the page and feeding it back into printer cartridge, so it can be used over again.

The technology is supposed to solve environmental problems caused by disposing of waste toner. On the other hand, it would increase cost-effectiveness of toner cartridge, since more pages per cartridge could be printed.

For now, the system works only with mono printers, however “it will take a bit longer to introduce it to colour machines as it needs a different mechanical approach, but ultimately we aim to introduce it there too,” says Jamie Mackenzie, Product Manager at Toshiba.

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The Five Big No's When You Print Posters

If you are planning to print posters, it is important not to look amateurish when you make them. People can spot an amateur poster print quickly just by looking at its design and print quality. If that amateurish poster is going to promote your business, then you will be in big trouble. To prevent this from happening, all you have to do is to remember the Five Big No's when your print posters.

No to letter size!:
The biggest mark of a poster printing novice is the letter sized posters. Letter sized posters may be cheap and all, but it hardly counts as a true promotional tool. You are not a grade school or high school student advertising the local bake sale. You care promoting a business through posters. A letter sized poster is not going to cut it. Worse, people might think that your business is not serious enough with those kinds of color posters. So say NO to letter sized posters okay? Invest in larger more professional sizes.

No to block texts!:
Another big NO for a poster design are groups or blocks of informational text. Never do this on your business poster. Yes you may want to give all the details, and printing it all up seems like the best option. But trust us, this is not. Block text will bore the reader, making it harder for them to read the total message of the poster. Always aim for a nice image that virtually tells the whole message of your poster. Just add a small descriptive tag line and you should be all set. Always keep your other details and block text, printed small enough so as not to destroy the aesthetic value of the poster.

No to "photoshopped" collages!:
Next to block text in the list of big No's for poster design are the badly made Photoshop collages. With the advent of advanced photograph retouching and enhancements, you should already be aware of the thousands of "photoshopped" poster images out there. The problem is, most of them are obviously "photoshopped". It is clear in most designs where one person was just pasted over the other, and what background was forced into the scene. It is a bit hard to explain, but it is all about the resolution and the blending of the images together. The result is a badly made color poster with obviously patched together images. It is very amateur looking and will never or should never be really shown for the public. You can prevent this from happening by just using one good photograph or image as your main poster design, no other image should be forcefully placed with it. It is easier, cheaper and it looks significantly better.

No to mass logos!:
Now, for a lot of posters out there, sponsors are really a big thing. However, if you have a lot of sponsors demanding their share of the poster space, you may have a problem. One of the worst things that can happen in this situation is if you are forced to design a poster with lots and lots of company logos. Yes you may owe some of these sponsors their loyalty and support, but if their numerous logos are impeding a good poster design, then there will be no use for the posters anyway. Try to always achieve a balance between the sponsor logos and the poster design. If necessary reserve a small spot for the logos, and be adamant that every company logo must be place on that part only. This certifies your poster as a true work of art, and not just a piece of nameless marketing trash.

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Laser-comparable inkjet text printing

The HP Deskjet 1200C printer achieves laser quality by means of pigmented black ink and precise, mode dependent control of drop volume. Contributing to laser printing speed are an intelligent print mode forecaster, a large memory capacity, heated drying, improved media handling, a larger printhead, and a high firing rate made possible by careful attention to refill dynamics.

The mission of the HP Deskjet 1200C print cartridge and product development team was to deliver text quality and speed that meets the expectations of the office printer market. The office standard for text printing has been set by the HP LaserJet series of printers. To be a general-purpose office printer, a printer must provide text quality, output speed and connectivity comparable to LaserJet printers, along with LaserJet language compatibility. This article discusses how two of those objectives--text quality and speed--were achieved. The article on page 85 discusses the compatibility and connectivity solutions.
Text Quality Fundamentals

Several attributes define the text quality of a printed page, regardless of whether its source is a serial impact dot matrix printer, a thermal inkjet printer, a laser printer, or a printing press. The fundamental characteristics that define print quality are:

* Character hue and darkness

* Edge smoothness or roughness

* Character edge contrast

* Presence of artifacts

* Uniformity of area fills.

Character darkness, or optical density, is a measure of the blackness (lack of lightness) of the printed image. In general, most surveys indicate that customers prefer darker characters over lighter characters. Hue refers to the tone of the color used to print the character. Even black characters can be slightly cold (bluish) or warm (brownish). The ability of the eye to distinguish small differences in hue diminishes at high optical densities.

In text printing, edge roughness is determined by several factors including printer resolution (often measured in dots per inch), dot placement accuracy, rendering algorithms, and the interactions between the colorant (e.g., the laser toner or the inkjet ink) and the paper. In general, higher resolutions produce smoother edges because they allow smaller changes in dot placement and the individual picture elements (pixels) correspond to smaller areas. Fig. 1 illustrates the improvement obtained by increasing resolution from 150 to 300 dpi with a binary printer. Firmware and hardware-based algorithms can be used to enhance edge smoothness further by judiciously placing dots between the basic grid points or by changing the dot size.

The contrast between the printed character and the background paper is affected by the optical density of the ink and toner, the color and brightness of the paper, and the edge transition sharpness of the printed area. For high-quality, high-contrast printing, the dark printed zones must transition sharply into unprinted zones. If the printed area slowly fades into unprinted paper, the characters appear fuzzy and soft.

Unwanted artifacts, such as inkjet spray and laser background scatter, can also make characters appear fuzzy. Inkjet spray is the presence of small, unwanted dots near the printed zones. In laser printing a similar phenomenon, called scarcer, sometimes occurs, leaving undesirable toner particles near the printed zones.

Solid area fills, used for graphics and large font rendition, should be uniform and dark. Nonuniformity of area fills can occur in a variety of ways, such as the mottle (light and dark areas) caused by the uneven penetration of an inkjet ink, the uneven gloss seen on many laser prints, banding, and density gradients.

Text Speed

Typical inkjet printers have text throughput ratings of one to three pages per minute. Laser print engines deliver four pages per minute in their low-end designs, 8 to lO pages per minute in the midrange designs, and as much as 16 to 20 pages per minute in the relatively expensive shared network devices. Our market target matched the low-end to midrange lasers, so we made our minimum throughput goal for high-quality text a true four pages per minute as measured by industry analysts' latest printer text benchmarks.

Comparing the Technologies

HP LaserJet printers and HP thermal inkjet printers use significantly different printing technologies. Each process has inherent advantages and engineering challenges. Fig. 2 illustrates the electrophotographic printing process and Fig. 3 shows the inkjet drop generation process. The basics of the thermal inkjet printing engine are described in "An Inside View of the Drop Generation Process" on page 11.

Laser printing has several high-value attributes. It provides a high degree of media independence, it is a high-speed page printing process, it is a dry process that doesn't wet the paper so physical distortions of the media are minimized, and it produces durable print unaffected by water and highlighters. Excellent character edge smoothness is achieved by the fusing process and the small toner particle size. Dot size can be adjusted, and customers perceive the process to be highly reliable.

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Scanning Paper Prints to Digital Photos On your Hard Disk

Sometimes you find yourself in a situation when you have to scan paper prints, negatives or slides and store them as digital photos on your computer
. Although the reason for doing that can vary there are some common considerations to scanning paper prints. In this article we will go over some of them and try to make your scanning experience easier.

There are three types of prints that you might be scanning:

# Paper prints: the most common, usually at sizes like 4X6 and 5X7.

# Negatives: also known simply as film. This is the processed film usually 35mm from which paper prints are made.

# Slides: very similar to negatives used for projecting photos on a large screen.

Scanning paper photos prints.

Photo paper prints are easy to scan. You can choose to scan them yourself at home (purchasing a scanner that can do the job is usually cheap and costs less than a $100). You can also choose to mail them (or hand them) to a professional scanning service that will scan them for you and mail you back the originals and a DVD with the digital scans (such services include www.digmypics.com, www.digitalpickle.com, www.britepix.com and many more)

There are pros and cons to both scanning at home and using a professional service. If you have a small number of photos scanning at home is easier. If you have plenty of photos using a service might be easier but you can end up spending more money.
When scanning at home consider the following:

# Resolution: the resolution of a scan is measured by the number of dots per inch that the scanner can produce. Most scanners can scan at 1200 DPI or more. Usually the scanner can be set to scan at different resolutions. The higher the resolution the slower the scan and the bigger the photo file size will be. For most paper prints scanning at 300 to 600 DPI is enough but you can experiment scanning at higher resolutions if you feel it provides better results.

# Speed: If you have a small number of photos speed is not an issue. If you have hundreds or more of photos scanning speed becomes important. To get fast scans you would have to scan at the lowest resolution possible that results in good enough scans - for most paper prints 300 to 600 DPI is enough.. Also if you're going to buy a scanner check the scanning speed (usually measured in the number of scans per minute make sure that you check the speed at the DPI you're going to use).

# Photo feeding: if you only have a small number of photos this is not an issue. If you have many photos make sure that the scanner you buy allows fast and easy loading of photos. Some higher-end scanners will let you load a stack of photos and will automatically feed and scan them for you. These scanners are the right choice if you are planning on scanning hundreds or more photos.

Scanning negatives and slides

Scanning negatives and slides is harder than scanning paper prints. In most cases it is easier and maybe cheaper to use a professional scanning service (such services include www.slidescanning.com, www.myspecialphotos.com, www.pixmonix.com and many more). If you want to scan at home your standard flat scanner will not be good enough. In most cases you will need to spend money on purchasing a film/slides scanner. Those scanners are more expensive than the flat paper scanners. Negatives and slides are small high resolution sources and thus require scanning at higher DPI than paper prints. In most cases 2400DPI or higher should be used.

The considerations for scanning negatives and slides are similar to scanning paper prints. If you need to scan just a few negatives or slides speed and ease are not important but if you're going to scan hundreds or more you should spend more money on scanners that can feed the negatives or slides automatically or can just load a roll of film and scan it.

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Scanner Technology

A scanner is a implement with the intention of has been innovated to glance at the printed material, which can be an picture or on paper textbook and in seizure digitally transfers, as look into a computer structure for additional managing out by the user.

Every scanner uses optical or carefree receptors to read texts and visual written on paper or on any other objects and decodes the in a row interested in a make up that can be second-hand by the computer. It optically scans image, in print text, handwritten documents and converts them into a digital image. Scanner moving parts on the attitude of digitalizing a vision by isolating it addicted to a small lattice of boxes.

Contemporary scanners normally use a Contact Image feeler (CIS) as the icon sensor. A gyratory scanner, old for high-speed verify scanning, is a caring of scanner that uses a CCD array. Further types of scanners are planetary scanners, which buy photographs of ID and 3D scanners, for delivering three-dimensional models of stuff. Scanners usually translate red, jade and downcast color (RGB) data commencing the array. This numbers is afterward worked upon for out of the ordinary exposure conditions.

Little selecting a scanner we should get about its Color depth. It varies depending upon the scanning array characteristics, but it is generally not less than 24 bits. Lofty quality models enjoy 48 bits or supplementary of dye deepness. The other focal parameters for selecting a scanner are its resolution. Resolution is measured in pixels per inch (ppi), at times more accurately referred to as Samples per inch (spi). Another vital significance for a scanner is its density range. A high-density reach channel with the intention of the scanner is able to give shadow details and brightness details in a single scan.

The enormity of the file shaped increases by the cube of the resolution. In simpler words, we can say with the purpose of the doubling of the resolution quadruples the size of the respective file. A resolution have got to be special that is within the capabilities of the machine, which can reservation adequate details, and does not construct a box file of superfluous size.

Enhanced scanners of today’s planet get skin tone resembling summit excellence optical lens, superior dynamic range, lower racket levels, finer steps on the stepping motor, much earlier interfaces, and better-bundled software. Therefore, we can say that scanner is the indispensable innovation of the expertise in the earth of notebook that has reduced a lot of workload in offices.

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Tips to Save on Your Printer Ink Cartridges

Buying a printer is a one time cost, but since printer ink cartridges need to be bought on a regular basis, the cost of operating the printer and maintaining it in proper condition can add up. Each ‘print’ command, however small, makes your printer use ink, but with some easy tips, you can actually save a lot of ink and use a cartridge for a longer period than usual.

1) Print only what is necessary

Let’s begin with economising. Most often, we end up making unnecessary printouts and in the process waste precious ink. For instance, you might need to print only a small portion of a web page instead of the whole page. Instead of simply printing the whole page, complete with its heavy graphics etc, be specific on what you want to have in hard copy and print only that portion.

Text always consumes less ink compared to graphics or images. If textual information is all that you need then you can make sure that you don’t print the graphics and images. If it is a web page you need to save in a printed form, check for its print version. If there is no print version, you can copy and paste the text in a word document and take a printout of that.

Also try to do a bit of planning and double check what you are printing before hitting the print button.

2) Go for a quick print preview

Most branded printers such as HP, Canon, Dell, Epson or any other printer come with a printer driver which has a very useful print preview function. With this function, you can have a prior preview of the copy you want to take a print out of.


This function is especially handy when you are directly taking the print out from the Internet. At times, what you see on a site is totally different as compared to the printed version. A quick preview can help to get the printout of the material that you specifically want.

3) Make sure the power is turned off

Just as you never switch off your computer without properly shutting it down, the same rule applies to your printer too. If you don’t shut down the printer properly, the print heads will remain directly exposed to air causing the ink to dry in the nozzles which, in turn, could affect the quality of printing adversely. Make it a habit to check the position of the print heads before cutting off the power.



4) Use good software

There are various ink saving software options available online. These software applications are designed to reduce the consumption of your printer ink. With these applications, you can get good quality printout copies with less ink consumption even during high resolution printing.

5) Use printer ink cartridges smartly

If you don’t do printing regularly, run a small printing test at least once a week, to avoid the ink cartridges from drying up. This little precaution will help you to increase the life of the cartridge.

6) Never expose your printer to extreme temperatures

Too much variation in room temperature is bad for printer ink cartridges. You must avoid keeping your printer in too hot or too cold a temperature as the cartridges can dry up. For lasting printer performance, make sure the room has a normal and stable temperature.



With these small but important tips, your printer ink cartridges will get a longer life. It is easy to buy good quality printer ink cartridges at excellent prices from online shops

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Printer Ink Cartridges

A type of printer that works by spraying ionized ink at a sheet of paper. Magnetized plates in the ink's path direct the ink onto the paper in the desired shapes. Ink-jet printers are capable of producing high quality print approaching that produced by laser printers. A typical ink-jet printer provides a resolution of 300 dots per inch, although some newer models offer higher resolutions.

Among manufacturers of printers, printer inks and other printing supplies and accessories, Brother is a well-respected name simply because it is a pioneer in the industry. The Brother brand of printer ink cartridges is a proven brand for quality.

What makes Brother printer ink cartridges stand out among so many other competing brands of printer ink? This is mainly because, as stated above, the quality of Brother printer ink cartridges is unmistakable.

There are four characteristics for all the printer ink types . These are:

1. Extensive research and development invested in every Brother printer ink cartridge, resulting in proper image balance;
2. Accurate color matching techniques;
3. Precision technology resulting in evenness in printer ink distribution; and
4. Printer ink characteristics that prevent smearing and clogging.

Proper Image Balance

Each cartridge of Brother printer ink is the end result of the company’s exhaustive efforts into improving their product and addressing the needs of their customers for prints with truly bright colors, sharp details and resistance to fading. The research and development team of Brother integrates over 100 various elements in the creation of each type of Brother printer ink cartridge.

It is important that each type of Brother printer ink cartridge has the perfect combination in quantity and configuration in order to achieve proper image balance. Moreover, the specific formulation of the ink is designed to maintain the reliability of the machine itself, as well as to protect the machine’s printer head.

Accurate Color Matching Technique

With every printer ink cartridge, regardless of the type, Brother utilizes a method of calculating and matching mixtures of colors so that the resulting prints will have sharp and vibrant colors that as true to life as they can get. The method makes use of a predetermined matching technique specially designed by Brother to create their quality of level of color prints as well as to create a wide gamut of colors for more vivid color combinations and sharper images.

Even Printer Ink Distribution

The right viscosity in printer inks is essential to keep the ink flowing smoothly through the machine’s printer head. Otherwise, if the printer ink does not display the proper consistency and constitution, the process will eventually lead to grainy quality in the resulting print. In the long run, not only will the print quality be the one to suffer from uneven printer ink distribution through the printer head, but it can also result in irreparable damage to the printer head itself. In creating a formula of printer inks with the proper viscosity, Brother aims not only to make the printing process easier for the printer device and for the computer user him- or herself.

Prevention of Smearing and Clogging

Smearing of the printer ink on the paper and clogging of the printer ink cartridges is like a death knell to any printer. It means that the printer ink cartridge is damaged by impurities in the ink, and it is highly likely that the printer head will be damaged as well. Brother prevents clogging from happening to its printer ink cartridges by ensuring the purity of its printer inks; smearing, on the other hand, is effectively prevented by delays between prints to allow the printed pages to dry first.

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Digital Printing

Digital printing is a printing process used to print directly from a digital file to a printed piece. Digital, unlike traditional print processes, does not use a fixed-image and consumable image carrier (a plate). The image is created on a computer and is placed on a substrate through the use of spots or dots using a toner, inkjet, dye, or pigment-based transfer system.

Digital printing is growing exponentially due to the fact that the process has dramatically changed the way a document is reproduced. Most traditional printing performed today is reproduced using an offset printing process, which demands more time and makeready even with the latest computer-to-plate technology. Digital printing requires no makeready and therefore can be used to run a quantity as low as one; it can also be done in either black-and-white or color. This results in digital printing being well suited for short runs, custom publications, and personalized printing.

Short-Run

Short-run printing is most often defined as printing quantities of less than 5,000. Much of what is digitally printed today is considered short-run color with static images. Running a color job on a digital press is accomplished much quicker, opposed to running a job using traditional printing methods.

As digital presses have increased in speed and quality, there has been a perpetual shift in jobs being run on digital presses rather than traditional presses. Current trends bode well for digital printing in that they reveal an increase in digital printing over time in the amount of jobs being printed on digital presses and in increased run lengths.

Custom Publications

Contemporary digital printing technologies are conducive to reproduction of quantities as small as one. Inevitably, this has been the catalyst to the tremendous growth in the custom publication market.

On-demand publishing and self-publishing have flourished because of digital printing. On-demand publishing allows a publisher to acquire digital files from the author to easily create a relatively small number of prints.

Personalized Printing

Personalized printing is a form of variable-data printing (VDP), which is a digital printing technology. VDP means that the information on a page can vary but not necessarily on every page. Similarly, but not wholly alike, personalized printing means that each page is distinctly different from the others. The "personalization" of a piece may include a person's name or any other personally identifiable information that is unique to an individual. This technology is limitless in its potential as it as become a cornerstone of the direct marketing industry.

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