Before I started scrapbooking, my ink cartridges lasted 9 months. I bought new cartridges on the 11th and printed about 25 pages at best quality since then. The ink levels still show as half full but the blue seems to be completely gone (blue is printing up purple, where for a previous print it was perfect, and I use a TON of blue, given I have so many men in the house!). I called lexmark to confirm this.

There is NO WAY I'm spending $30 a week on ink! So I found a refill kit at overstock meant specifically for my cartridges and ordered it.

I plan on only refilling the blue, and not all the way up (last time I used a refill kit with my old printer I overfilled and ruined the dang thing ), but I'd like to know what to expect quality wise? I'm assuming the refill ink isn't as good, but will it be good enough? It's not like I have a choice to buy cartridges so often!

It depends on what printer you are using and what type of refills, but whenever you buy something not made by your printer manufacturer you run the risk of it not working, and possibly even ruining your printer!
I have bought a new printer that was relatively inexpensive and I have heard it does 50 front and back 8X10 pages before the printer runs out. If you have an Epson printer they are known for using a lot of ink. Canon is much better at their ink usage and it still looks good.
What you can do is look on epinions dot com to see if the ink refill you are planning on buying is any good and if it works with your printer

Mine is a Lexmark X5150 All in One...it does a pretty good job for the $70 Clearance price I paid (I bought it not planning on printing alot of photos) And the ink did last forever in normal/fast mode.

I was unable to find any reviews on the kit I bought, so I'm just going to hope for the best. Provided it works, I'll try printing in better instead of best mode. Thanks for your reply

I have the X5150 and print in BEST mode and notice that the ink goes pretty quick too. But since I have put a new cartridge in I have printed 4-- 8 1/2 x 11 & 5-- 8 x 8 , then a few doc's and 1/2 my color is gone and 1/3 of my black. The quality is good though Luck I don't make more LO then I do.. the cartridge's are $60 up here.

Hey question for you, does our printer not print borderless?

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Well, good news, the refill kit works great! I got it today and had to use the clean head thingy 4 times but now it's printing up the layouts as nice as the manufacturer's ink. I did notice that better mode isn't good enough, but my $15 refill kit does 2 refills so it's alot cheaper then $30 a cartidge, so I'll contine to use Best mode.

Candiflip, in Photoshop 7, if you click on Print with Preview, you get an option to add a border. Other wise, I'm not sure if you can make it print with printer settings.

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~Amy
I'm a Website Designer ~ Gallery ~ Blog

So glad you went ahead and tried refilling your ink. Black ink is very easy to do. You will find that once in a while you may have some trouble with the color but it is well worth refilling. Some advice just don't let your cart. sit empty, keep them filled and you will have less problems.
Now I have a question are lazer printers better than inkjets? Are they more reasonable on ink?

I own both an Epson and a Canon, and the Canon seems to manage ink better (they use different head technology). From my Epson I can get about 38 8x8 full coverage layouts from a set of ink cartridges. From the Canon, I can get about 45 pages.

I have resorted to using 3rd party ink cartridges, even though it voids the warranty. (The Canon printer only cost $48 so who cares!!) I've had great luck with cartridges from CarrotInk dot com and MyInks dot com, and they are a fraction of the price of the name brand ones.

FYI-

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Roseanne

232 digi layouts so far in 2005 Avatar by Hunibuni!!
"Creative expression is at the root of one's physical and emotional well-being"