Greg
Green Technologies Manager

We all need to slow down and take some time to think how we can individually use less resources, reuse what we have and recycle whenever possible.

In this ere of wildly increasing oil and energy prices, we can all take some of the pressure off by making some small changes. A few percent here and a few percent there can go a long way in helping our environment.

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INSIDER SECRETS ON HOW TO MAKE GREAT PHOTO PRINTS AT HOME

Why does one photo print look so much better than another? As it turns out, that question is fairly easy to answer. Most of the time it is the quality of the paper.

I want you to think back and visualize all the TV commercials you've seen for paper towels. How do they show how absorbent they are? I remember many that have a pool of blue liquid. They then partially touch the puddle of blue liquid with the paper towel. They then show how the paper towel soaks up the entire puddle even though it wasn't in contact with the entire puddle.

How can the paper towel soak up the liquid it doesn't touch? The paper wicks up the liquid. The liquid actually travels through the paper towel. Guess what if it happens in a paper towel it will also happen in photo paper.

The Framing Station saves files at 300 dots per inch. That means that there are 90,000 dots in every inch of printing. Think of it - 300 dots wide multiplied by 300 dots tall equals 90,000 dots per inch. That's a whole bunch of dots. Now multiply that by 8.5 inches wide and 11 inches tall. You can quickly see that your printer is printing a whole bunch of dots.

Now think of what happens on cheap paper to all of those 90,000 dots in a single inch. Your printer prints them in the right place, but the paper wicks or leaks the liquid of the ink to the portions of the paper to the top, bottom, left and right of the dot. Compound that with the fact that every dot is leaking and combining with each other. That is why on cheap paper all of the colors start looking gray. What would happen if you took a bunch of liquid water colors and mixed them all together? You'd get some sort of gray color. The same thing is happening on cheap paper.

SO WHAT DO YOU DO?

Do you give up? I say no. The key is to buy quality photo paper that will leave those 90,000 dots on the page where they're supposed to be. We tend to buy Kodak paper. To save money, we buy it in 200 sheet packs at Sam's Club or Costco. That way the price per page or print is reasonable. I'm sure that there are other brands that have equal quality paper. It's just that when you find something that works, produces images that you think are outstanding, and are a great value when purchased in bulk ($20), I say why mess with it? We stick with Kodak, and call it a day.

USE FAKE INK?

This might surprise you. We print on quality Kodak photo paper, but most of our prints are using an Epson printer using non-Epson ink. We save money using non-OEM or non-Epson ink. We buy it on-line and save big time because we buy six cartridges at a time. We love photos, and we love frames (no surprise there), so we've come up with a way that won't cost us a fortune to print. We won't sacrifice quality, and we're sure that you don't want to either.

Don't take our word for it. Experiment and try it out for yourself. Just look for when they've got a deal on 4x6 paper, and try a few brands. We're sure like us that you'll settle on the Kodak, and save some money with the ink.