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My employer builds commercial inkjet printing systems[^], so I thought I'd make some comments regarding the current discussion on printers.
Inkjet works best when used frequently. You are printing using a fluid, after all. If that fluid isn't kept circulating it will tend to dry and gum up the works. Our systems work hard to maintain ink concentration and other characteristics. Laser OTOH doesn't mind low duty cycle usage. As many have cited, you can power up a laser printer, print a few pages, and then power it off for days or weeks without harm. Toner is much more tolerant of environmental factors during storage than ink.
In terms of print quality, if you need well-controlled color reproduction inkjet is a better choice. If high resolution and perfect registration is your thing, then laser is the way to go. For high speed and/or volume printing, inkjet is cheaper per page by far(*).
(*) Brag: Our systems can print full color duplex (two-sided) at 17 feet per second.
Like most technical products, you have to look at your requirements and choose based on them. For consumer document printing I prefer laser as the resolution is better, which is an advantage for text. For photographs I prefer inkjet as the color looks a lot better and most of the photograph papers on the market are designed for it.
Software Zen: delete this;
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I'd agree - for commercial systems inkjet is way better (particularly if you use UV setting inks).
I used to design industrial inkjet printers (not on your scale) for coding and marking, and provided it's used all the time inkjet (even piezo inkjet) is very, very hard to beat. And unbelievably profitable ... the margins on ink are massive!
Even for workplace, when it's being used every day, inkjet can be excellent.
But domestic? It's a PITA. 
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
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OriginalGriff wrote: And unbelievably profitable ... the margins on ink are massive!
It might have turned into a meme by now, but somebody years ago had calculated that if inkjet printer ink was sold by the gallon, one unit would be something like $9000...
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A gallon of our ink would have cost us around £7, and once packaged for the printer it would sell for about £4,200 or so. And since it was a pigmented ink (2nm Carbon in an aliphatic hydrocarbon) it had a "use by" date on it as it flocculated. (We had a 5nm filter inline, to protect the 10nm filter in the print head but once it flocculated it blocked that pretty quickly.)
Nasty stuff that ink - that aliphatic hydrocarbon base ate reacted with nearly everything, and it was next to impossible to get out of your clothes if you got it on them.
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
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OriginalGriff wrote: it had a "use by" date on it as it flocculated
Reticulating splines. Am I...am I doing it right?
Oh, wait. It's actually a thing...had to look it up. 
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I'd never heard of it until I got involved with hi-res industrial printing. 
It's a lovely sounding word though, innit?
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
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Make it into a CCC!
I, for one, like Roman Numerals.
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I can't now!
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
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I don't know that I've ever seen a discussion of paper texture either.
For digital images which are intended to mimic water-color paintings or charcoal drawings and such, a heavily-textured surface may be desired.
I've had good results with inkjet in that situation, but how do lasers do with that?
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Paper characteristics are a major factor in print quality for both laser and inkjet. In the consumer world it's probably not a big deal as long as the paper transport within the printer can move it correctly. It will affect dot placement in both cases, since the surface isn't flat and uniform. Even during the xerographic (laser) process, which applies pressure to the paper during printing, this will be a problem when the paper is released.
Textured paper as you describe would cause our printers grief. Height above substrate (the distance the drops travel) varies which affects drop placement. Textured paper is going to drop fibers as it goes through the press, which will block jets and interfere with camera systems. Worst of all is textured paper deforms a lot more when it gets wet and then is dried, which will cause further registration issues.
We've had customers apply texturing effects to images in pre-production to achieve the look of what you've described while printing on a nice flat substrate.
Software Zen: delete this;
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Quote: apply texturing effects to images
Uh, no.
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Agreed. We usually recommend against such things, even when they're done in a subtle fashion, because the end result just doesn't look right.
Software Zen: delete this;
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I once worked on a project for a well-known purveyor of expensive ink where we measured the volume of individual drops of ink from cartridges. I believe the units used were picoliters.
"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"
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Rick York wrote: I believe the units used were picoliters
Our drops range from 11pL down to around 6pL, depending on the product line and resolution.
One of our more inventive bits of salesmanship was in a poster displayed at a recent show: "If our ink drops were raindrops, we would be laying down the volume of an Olympic-sized swimming pool every second." 
Software Zen: delete this;
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Gary Wheeler wrote: we would be laying down the volume of an Olympic-sized swimming pool every second."
That would make the olympics a lot more fun.
I'd rather be phishing!
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Gotta love "those" sorts of units. How many Libraries of Congress is that (as the meme goes)?
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Hmm. The math shouldn't be too hard.
Each roll of paper is on the order of 40,000 ft. Assume that 1 ft of paper = 4 printed pages (2 sheets, front and back). A roll of paper is therefore about 160,000 pages. The Library of Congress contains approximately 160 million items. Assuming 100 pages per item, that's 1.6x1010 pages, or 100,000 rolls of paper. At 1 roll of paper per hour, it would take one of our machines 11.4 years printing continuously at max speed 24/7/365 to print 1 Library of Congress.
Of course this omits mandatory maintenance and such, so you might have warranty issues  .
Software Zen: delete this;
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How about this idea?
On-demand ink.
The pigment is stored as a powder, and only become "ink" when mixed with water (or whatever), which occurs when you start a job.
Silly idea? Or did I just blow a potential gazillion dollars in patent licensing?
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I see some practical issues, namely ensuring that the liquid is properly mixed with the powder, that no lumps of powder remain in the liquid, etc. These problems are compounded by the need to mix tiny amounts, and do so fast enough to feed the print head.
If you can solve the problems, you may have a patentable idea.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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Probably not mixed per-job, but per session? Or even per-day, if you print frequently? (And then the heads get flushed when you shut down, too?)
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No idea is truly silly, but given the work we go through to manage ink concentration and other characteristics, plus the Rube Goldberg apparatus in our ink production plant downstairs, I don't think it would be quite that easy.
Nice try though.
Software Zen: delete this;
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Gary Wheeler wrote: Inkjet works best when used frequently
I've been very pleasantly surprised by our printer (just a cheap Canon Pixma) in this regard - we print, on average, maybe once a month, and we have had problems with clogging with the printer we had before this one (an Epson, IIRC). This one, though? It's worked perfectly every time (🤞). The only complaint I have with it is that the mechanical bits seem to whir and hum, doing nothing productive, for a minute or so before the first page pops out. Subsequent pages come out quickly enough...
Java, Basic, who cares - it's all a bunch of tree-hugging hippy cr*p
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Stuart Dootson wrote: the mechanical bits seem to whir and hum, doing nothing productive, for a minute or so before the first page pops out
Taking an experienced guess they are 'cleaning' the printhead and related plumbing after a long shutdown period by flushing ink through it. We do essentially the same thing with secondary (non-ink) fluids.
Software Zen: delete this;
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Some of it, I'm sure - but there's also a lot of sound that seems to me to be the paper feed wheels whizzing around, so IDK...
Java, Basic, who cares - it's all a bunch of tree-hugging hippy cr*p
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