So here we go.  Chris made a few comments about my recent post regarding inkjet vs. color laser.  I won’t get into an argument about the technology behind the printers.  I just don’t have the experience he does in print media.  However, I can comment on my own experiences.

I would suggest that maybe the reason you prefer your home printer’s output is because it’s blending the pixels and hiding imperfections that are in the source file. 

I’d have to disagree here.  The reason I like my the photos off my inkjet is that they just look better.  It’s not a detail thing either.  I see the same amount of detail when comparing two photos – one from my printer and one from a photo lab.  Same amount of hair follicles.  Same amount of dirt on my sons face.  Same amount of detail in the tree bark.  The main difference I see is color saturation.  For instance, I’ve never been able to get blacks as black as my inkjet makes.  I have no clue if that’s just from an incompetent photo lab, or something related to the technology behind the two printers, but I see what I see.  The first time I printed something off a true photo printer, my wife and I were shocked photos could look so good.  The only reason we still use a photo lab is because it’s cheap and easy (no comments about me being cheap and easy please).

Well, there’s one other reason.  I’ve had a little bad luck with photo lifespan last year.  I don’t know if it was just a bad set of ink, but a number of my photos started fading and introduced a nasty color shift over a few months.  I haven’t seen it recently, but it made a big enough scare with me that we only use lab prints for Christine’s scrap booking.  Now, I do have a dye based printer.  Pigment based ink should last a LOT longer, but they’re more expensive.  Someday…

Back to the laser printer, Chris writes,

But here’s what they’re great for: graphics that use photos such as kids projects done using PrintShop or similar software.  

I can’t agree more here.  When my son gets old enough, color laser is the way to do.  There’s probably going to be some wacky new printing technology by then, but I’d buy a laser if not.