If it is surely that easy to furnish prints at home at low cost, more people would do so. As it is, people all suffer from the not insignificant cost of consumables, and this is made worse by the number of waste involved in trying several times to get a decent result.
What is the cause?
A very base intuit for poor results is an incorrect colour-management setup - or the perfect lack of one. Of course, this is in the realms of something "technical", and so many users will plainly avoid getting involved in ideas of "colour management" because it seems difficult to set up.
But sadly, without a colour administration theory the chances of creating standard colour prints are small. Fortunately these days, it is relatively straightforward to assign Icc profiles to a monitor and other devices in Windows Xp and Vista, and what's more, an ever greater number of photo-editing applications have colour administration suites included.
Here is some definite guidance to generate good capability prints with a minimum of waste.
Colour administration
Icc profiles installed for at least the monitor and printer/paper combination. These profiles are supplied with the device, or they can be downloaded from the manufacturer's website. Windows Xp and Vista profiles are in Windows\System32\spool\drivers\color.
To install a monitor profile, open the Display Properties control Panel, click the developed button on the Settings tab and agree the Colour administration tab.
Monitor calibration
Specific profiles are produced from an personel monitor, but personel monitors can and do vary in their colour characteristics. Such differences can be controlled by using the installation default settings for brightness, contrast, colour climatic characteristic and any other ready adjustable settings.
However, if the monitor profile seems to be the source of colour problems, it is worth considering the buy of a hardware profiler. These devices consist of a spectrophotometer, which attaches to the screen, and software which analyses the screen output to furnish an Icc profile for your definite display. Some monitor calibration devices surely measure the ambient light in the room and adjust the monitor settings accordingly, as well as the monitor screen output.
Soft Proofing
There is no point in getting a printer to reproduce exactly what appears on the screen because this is a corporal impossibility: the two devices use separate systems to display colour - and what's more, a monitor can display many more colours than a printer can surely print.
The respond to this conundrum is soft proofing. This involves using colour administration to make the monitor emulate the colour characteristics of the printer. Thus the monitor shows what the printer is able to do, not the other way around. The best photo-editing software, including Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro Photo X2, can show you a soft proof before you commit to ink and paper.
Ambient light
The presence of strong lighting or colours close to your monitor - room lighting, even clothing is called "ambient light". This affects the way on-screen colours look. The fact is, that due to ambient light, a print viewed under artificial room lighting will look very separate from face in the daylight.
Best therefore to choose a neutral desktop colour (white, black, or grey) for viewing photos. If you have a multi-coloured desktop, it is best to use the photo editor's full screen or sideshow mode.
Get the exact ink
Experimenting with unbranded third-party inks is all very well, but if consistent high capability results are needed from a printer, it surely is best to use the manufacturer's ink cartridges unless these are replaced with bespoke high-quality specialist inks fit for purpose, rather than inks designed to save costs.
Choosing the exact paper
As with ink it is always best to use paper produced by the printer constructor for most purposes. It is surely foremost to understand that there is no such thing as an "absolute" printer profile - the profile supplied any printer constructor is for a printer model using a definite paper and ink combination.
If any other paper is used, the profile won't be exact and the results will be unpredictable. It used to be difficult to get hold of profiles for whatever other than the manufacturer's recommended ink/ paper aggregate but, as time goes on, paper manufacturers are starting to contribute profiles for their products on a range of printers.
Keep the printer clean
A very base cause of inkjet printer problems is blocked jets. This is not surely a problem if the printer is turned off after use. Some printers achieve a cleaning cycle on power up. But if the printer is left on all the time, the waste is clearly not good for the environment on two fronts: wasted power and wasted paper when rejecting low capability prints.
Photo Printing - Top Tips for Getting the Colour Right