Ink replacement

[angelmom05]

  My HP printer goes through black and color ink every 3 weeks.  Is this normal? I've printed several pictures lately but only in a 5x7 size. 

[Donal_M]

Hi,

Your ink usege is completely dependant on the type and frequency of your printing. To help use less ink you could switch to draft mode although this wil result is less vibrant photos.

Another option if you feel you are printing alot is HP's instant ink program provided you are in an eligible country and have an eligible printer -see the link below.

https://instantink.hpconnected.com/ca/en/r

[angelmom05]

I'm sure the Instant Ink is a great idea. However I'm not sure it would benefit me.  The last 2 months I've used my printer a lot. I say a lot, probably 50 or less sheets. Some months I don't use but a couple of sheets the entire month.  I print colored greeting cards and some occasional photos.  On my photos I am always on best quality. It just seems to use more Ink than my old HP did.  

[sabretooth04]

Here is a chart to help with Ink Cartridge Page Estimation.  All cartridges are based on a 5% coverage when new.

Note:  A 5% coverage is about 6 single spaced lines of text on a page. No bold, graphics or pictures.  A full color photo would be 100% coverage.

A ‘regular’ page of text would be about 72 lines and give us 30% coverage (more realistic).  Don’t forget the font type and size you use will use more ink too.

Example: 564XL Black = 550 pages at 5% coverage.   

Your average page coverage you estimate is 30%.  So…550/6 = 91.

Therefore the number of pages expected (30% coverage) out of your cartridge would be about 90.

[angelmom05]

I have printed 22 5x7 photographs at the best quality and I'm almost out of color ink again.  New one when I started. Is this normal?

[sabretooth04 · Accepted solution]

I beleive your printer uses a HP 61 Tri-color cartridge.  This yields 100 pages at 5% coverage.  Since you are doing full color photo's that means you are using 100% coverage.

So with the above math...   100/20 = 5 pages.   Better than expected.

Hoever if using the XL Color cartridge...  This cartridge yields 330 pages.

So now that math is...  330/20 = 16 pages.   You are still getting better than that.