Most inkjet printers on market today have a mode for printing on photo glossy paper. If you use good quality photo glossy paper, 7 - 10 mills in thickness, you can get a picture perfect print.

A good quality digital camera helps too. Most digital cameras sold today have capability of making a decent print even on lowest resolution. Of course if you want a better print you need to use a higher resolution on your camera.

Whoh! That's not an answer. Well consider this. How many printer models do you think there are out there right now? 1000? 2000? Who knows. But one thing I do know is nobody, including me, is going to spend time testing wrong inks in wrong cartridges all day long to see if it works.

"OK wise guy", you say, "can I at least get a reasonable explanation of why I can't use my old ink in my new printer?"

Sure, that's an easier question to answer. You see, everybody already assumes that they can before they even ask question, that's why they word it that way. It's because of people who sell those "one kit fits all" refill kits.

All printer manufacturers do things a little different. Without getting technical, there are basically three different technologies for inkjet printers. Epson uses Piezoelectric, Canon uses Bubblejet and HP and Lexmark use thermal inkjet technology.

An ink designed for Canon, for instance, has a much lower convection rate than an ink made for HP or Lexmark. The reason is HP's cartridge print heads fire at thousands of degrees. The ink must be made to withstand that kind of heat or your resulting output will be unpredictable.

Also there are basically two kinds of ink. Dye based and Pigmented. Pigmented ink particles are much larger than dye based particles so using a pigmented ink in a cartridge designed to use dye based ink will result in a clogged print head every time. Also, pigmented inks are waterfast on any surface. Notice I said waterfast and not waterproof. Pigmented inks can made waterproof if they are used with proper media. The same goes with dye based inks.