Printers Ink Explained

Have you run out of Printer Ink?

This article goes through the two different types of ink used in Inkjet printers.

If your inkjet printer need a refill, jump directly to our Ink search where we guide you to the best deals on the net.

Ink types for Inkjet printers

Two different types of ink are used for inkjet printers - dye and pigment based. The choice of ink type depends on what result you expect and which characteristics you favor.

Pigment based inks are generally stronger in the following fields compared to dye based ones:

• water resistant
• fast drying (up to 100 times faster then dye based inks)
• non fading colors
• long life cycle
• low bleeding in the edges of the printed color

Dye based inks are generally stronger in the following fields compared to pigment based ones:

• High brilliance and contrast
• Wide color gamut

Because of above characteristics, dye based inks are more often used in monochrome printers and pigment inks in color printers. The main reason for this is that four up to ten different colors (depending on the cartridge system) may be used in a color printer. All colors needs to dry fast so that they don't bleed into each other.

Intensive research and development is done continuously in printer inks which means that both types of ink are steadily becoming better in their weak areas. Some of the larger printer makers not only produce the printers but also develop and produce inks like Epson, Canon and HP which all have their own ink series.

All in all, remember that ink is just one of three important factors for getting really good print results. It’s of equal importance that the quality of the printer hardware and the printer paper also holds a good standard.