The truth is, it's a little bit of both. Inkjet printers work by spraying very small drops of ink onto the paper. These dots combine to make the prints and pictures that you end up with.

Because these drops of ink are so small and they must be very precise, the quality of the ink is important to the final results.

Modern printers are actually very high-tech pieces of equipment, and they're designed to work together as a whole. The printer is designed to work properly with a certain formula of ink, and the paper made by the printer companies is made to give the best results with their ink.

Mixing different parts of the process - such as using HP paper with Epson printers - will end up in poor quality printing. For this reason, you need to be sure you're using ink that is compatible with your particular model and brand of printer.

That's not to say the original manufacturer is the only ink you should use, however. The fact is there are "generic" cartridges and refill ink that will work fine with your printer, you just need to be sure that it is designed for the model you're going to use it with.

The printer companies make the majority of their profit on the ink cartridges, so they're not going to tell you this.

As long as you ensure the ink (and other supplies) you're using are compatible, you won't run into problems and your print quality will be every bit as good as with the original (much more expensive) ink.