Most folks think that paper is paper and that any paper can be printed on. This used to be true in the time of letterpress and etchings, but today, each type of printer needs to have specific paper or it will jam up the works. A laserpress, which is what I use, must use paper specifically designed for a laserpress. There cannot be too much dust or the drums or print belt will cloud up and the print quality diminishes.

When you are shopping for a good local printer, there are things to consider that matter more than price.  If the printer uses plain old copy paper, your printed copies will not be displayed as well as you might like. Plain old copy paper is usually 20# paper that has a brightness factor of 88 to 92. The brightness scale peaks out at 100. There is no brighter paper out there than 100 brightness paper. If you took a piece of standard 92 brightness copy paper and laid it on top of a 100 brightness sheet of laser paper, the copy paper would actually look gray. Think about what that gray will do to the color of your copies. It’s like mixing a little black in with the reds, yellows and blues.

Wouldn’t you want to make the best impression on that new customer by having the very best copies that you could possibly get? Well the first thing you must do is to choose the best quality paper that you can get. The paper is the foundation for your printing. If you have a poor foundation, nothing you can do will make the printing look any better; but if you start with a nice bright white color copy paper, your copies will look great.

Next I will discuss the dots per inch and how they affect the finished product.