In this paper, we discuss the relationship between a high-speed continuous ink jet system and the printing substrate. Dense surfaces, with different kinds of topographies, were used to evaluate the importance of the droplet impact and spreading without capillary penetration. Commercial papers were also used to evaluate the potential of the existing grades and to find the key performance parameters.A laboratory-scale testing environment was used for the high-speed imaging of ink jet drops. The impact, spreading, absorption and drying of the ink droplets on the samples can be observed and analysed in this testing environment on the time scale of microseconds up to several minutes. The image technical performance of the samples was measured with an image analysis system which was specially designed for the analysis of print quality with non-impact printing techniques.