5 Ways to Save Ink Printing Photos

Printing photos at home is convenient, although it can end up being time consuming and costly. Ink cartridges are expensive and even the smallest of photos can use up a lot of ink. By making a few small adjustments though, you can vastly reduce how much ink you use and save yourself both time and money.

1. Lower photo saturation

Photo saturation is how intense the colour is or how much it contrasts with the white in your photo. The less vivid the photo, the less ink the printer has to use. Many word processors like Microsoft Word have in built features for lowering the saturation of photos. Photo editing software from simple basic photo viewers to Photoshop can also easily make the adjustment.

2. Printing in black and white

Typically, black ink cartridges are cheaper to buy than colour ink cartridges. Changing the colour mode to black and white (or greyscale) can significantly save how much ink your printer uses on your photos.

3. Reduce the size

By reducing the size of the photo you are printing, you can save a lot of ink. Simply shrink the photo down in your photo editor of choice or use your printers in built functions. Most printers have a ‘shrink to fit’ option that reduces the photo to the size of your paper for you or a shrink by percentage option.

4. Print in Draft Mode

Sometimes called 'print saver', 'toner saver' or 'economy', printing in draft mode will print a photo in a lower resolution, so the printer uses less ink.  This option is designed for printing test photos when the quality is not important. A high quality image can be printed if you are happy with the draft mode result.

5. Buy photo ink

Photo ink cartridges have been specially designed for printing photos. They efficiently use ink to produce the best quality and most affordable photos. You should keep in mind when buying photo ink cartridges that not all printers accept them, so you should check your printer’s specifications/requirements beforehand.