How to Prevent Inkjet Smearing?

Prevent Inkjet Printer Smearing:

Mostly liquid ink dries quickly on printouts but sometimes smearing can occur especially when you touch the printout just after the printing. Smearing ruins the printouts and you have to print them again and the outcome is wasting paper and ink, but don’t worry there is a solution to prevent inkjet paper from smearing.

Selecting the right paper and ink are simple ways to avoid serious smearing. Also, taking enough time to dry can keep your papers to smearing. Find below the solution.

Give Enough Time to Dry Ink-

Most of the time users print their images or documents and start using them immediately. That’s the reason for inkjet smearing. To prevent inkjet smearing, your document needs a few hours to dry and images prints need around 24 hours to dry, the drying time can vary from a few hours to several days. It’s based on the inkjet printer or paper you use for printing.

Moreover, there are some photo printers whose prints need a month to dry. If you want to learn how to prevent inkjet smearing, then we suggest you give your prints enough time to dry. Conduct some research into how much time is recommended and then follow it.

Pick High Quality Inks

The most valuable aspect of inkjet printing is the ink. Yes, this is the first thing people think about when they want to save money on inkjet printing is the ink.

The outcomes of selecting poor quality options like unbranded compatible ink cartridges and refilling services, immediate fallout of inkjet smearing. With bad quality ink, there’s no way to prevent inkjet smearing. It’s better to get high quality ink.

Pick the Right Combination of Ink and Paper

Another reason for smeared prints is that the ink cartridges and paper type that you are using are really compatible. This can happen sometimes when people go for cheaper options or even try to upgrade one of the consumables.

Despite that, every inkjet printer comes with a set of recommendations for the type of ink and paper that need to be used. You can either choose to follow these recommendations to the letter or try out combinations and permutations of ink and paper types to see which works for you best.

You should also choose the upgrading paper to use a more advanced type. There are various types of paper available in the market with special coatings on them. The intention of these coatings is to seal the ink under it.

Change the Printer Settings

Yes, it could be that simple. The easiest way to prevent inkjet smearing is by changing printer settings. Every printer has its own set of settings. Generally, printer setting defaults are the safest settings.

These settings will work for you if you’re using the recommended consumables. However, if you want to change your consumables or go for higher quality, then you’ll have to play with your printer settings.

So, when you start changing things around, it could lead to smearing in prints if the changes are not in synergy. That’s the reason you may need to change your printer settings.

First of all you should check the paper type your printer is set up for. Inside printer settings, you will be able to change the paper type or model. In case you selected the wrong paper type, then it is inkjet smearing.

Use Sealants to Prevent Inkjet Smearing

You can also take the help of products to prevent inkjet smearing, the products are easily available in the market. With the help of sealants you can apply to the surface of the printed image and prevent inkjet smearing because they block the ink from interacting with water.

These sealants are usually known by multiple names such as art protectant or simply “sealant”.

If you can’t find sealants, you can use everyday home items as substitutes.

Such as, you can also use polyurethane, nail paint, and hairspray.

Consider Pigment Based Inkjet Printers

You may have to take drastic steps to prevent inkjet smearing. The drastic step we are talking about here is to switch from your current dye ink-based printer to a pigment ink-based printer. Pigment inks is not waterproof, are more resistant to water than dye inks. As a result, using pigment ink-based printers will prevent inkjet smearing.

Ultimately, it is possible that your career, business, or education is suffering because your inkjet printer just won’t perform.

If you don’t want to face problems like smearing then change it from inkjet printing to laser printing. Laser printer users hardly complain of problems such as smearing because of water because toner isn’t water-based.