Purchasing a new photographic inkjet printer these days can be downright confusing.   For example, every printer seems to come with the designation: “Professional Photo Quality”. Since I’m not at all sure what that means, we’ll try to ignore such marketing mumbo jumbo and instead focus on the actual technology used in inkjet printing these days.   (Don’t worry—this isn’t a technical essay, but knowing a little bit about basic printing components is the key to cutting through all the hype when shopping for a new printer.)

Sometimes understanding a little bit about how something works helps us deal with the device a little better. I think that holds true with today’s ink jet printers. One of the most frustrating things in the printing process is when prints suddenly start coming out bad. There are a lot of things that can go wrong. For now we are going to look at the printer and the most common things that can go wrong like clogged nozzles.