First and foremost, photo paper must be matched to your specific type of printer. Photo paper formulated for laser printers won’t work well in inkjet printers, and vice versa. That’s because lasers use high temperatures to fuse their grains of color toner to the paper. Inkjet photo paper, on the other hand, is designed to print at much lower temperatures. If you put inkjet photo paper into a laser printer, the coating might actually melt, and that could damage or even destroy the OPC drum inside your laser printer. Conversely, laser photo-paper coatings won’t correctly receive dye or pigment from an inkjet printer, and the ink may run and smear rather than adhere, possibly gumming up your printer’s innards.

 

Incidentally, matching paper to your printer isn’t a problem if your printer uses dye-sublimation technology. (Many popular Sony, Canon, and Fuji snapshot-printer models are dye subs.) That’s because the printer manufacturer is the only supplier of the paper/ribbon packages that will fit, let alone work, in your device. Usually, the paper and ribbon come in a single box, and exactly enough paper for the amount of ribbon is provided.

 

For most users, the best photo paper is the kind made, branded, or sold by the company that makes your printer. You’ll usually see the best results—in terms of printability, image quality, color fidelity, and longevity—buying paper made by the manufacturer. That’s because each manufacturer can precisely match its ink formulas and paper substrates for optimum quality in a way that no third-party company can.

 

That isn’t to say that you should completely steer away from third-party photo papers. Generic and third-party consumer-level photo papers can not only be significantly less expensive, but they can also provide users with an array of different surfaces and textures not available from the printer manufacturer’s catalog of photo papers.

 

Take note, though: If you have an inkjet printer and wish to print on generic or third-party photo paper, you must match it to the kind of ink your printer uses. Depending on your make or model, your inkjet requires either pigment- or dye-based ink, and never the twain shall meet. Like laser paper in an inkjet, using photo paper formulated for pigment ink in a dye-ink-based printer may produce bizarre colors, smears, smudges, or even ink running off the page. The same consequences can occur using dye-designed photo paper in a pigment-based inkjet printer.

 

Fortunately, you don’t have to know whether your printer uses dye or pigment inks, if you simply check the paper package or the company’s Web site for compatibility. Most paper manufacturers helpfully list the makes and models of printers that work with their papers. If your printer isn’t listed, take a pass on that paper, no matter how appealing, attractive, or economical it may be.