Reader's Comments - Index of - Free

Color Printers
The set that were made on the inexpensive ink jet printer looked like the typical
low resolution, lots of dots stereotypical cheap digital stuff that many people are
familiar with.
The dye sublimation prints looked good enough that they could have easily fooled
a casual viewer into thinking that they were small photographs.
I don't know whether the difference was printer setup software related or if it was
completely due to process. In any event, the difference was huge.
-- Glen Johnson, January 13, 1997
There's been a rash of new, low-cost and reputedly "photo quality" inkjet printers
released onto the market. In particular, the Canon BJC-4200 and 4550 (A3/tabloid
sized), and the Epson 500 are reputed to give near photo quality at around 720dpi.
Whilst there's plenty of reviews of these by the computer press, I've yet to find any
reviews by folks with a photographic bent ...
-- David Gurr, February 18, 1997
I have an Epson Stylus Colour II printer which I use for colour prints (Photoshop
produced files from either scanned or digital camera output). The quality is 'near
photographic' if you use Epson High Quality (720 dpi) paper (standard and glossy
paper is available). However, the cost of this paper is about $2.50/sheet (8.5" x
11"). I have compared the output for the same image printed with a Tectronix
dyesub printer and the dyesub images are superior. No dots are visible- even with a
magnifying glass- because the printing method 'melts' adjacent pixels together
during the printing process. Since the 'melted' pixels emmulate the silver grains of
traditional photographic paper, I think that this approaches (but does not equal)
'true' photographic quality.
-- Barry Hargrave, March 7, 1997
I believe a whole lot of photographers are setting themselves up for a rude shock
when all of their digital prints start fading away. The fact is that other than the
Kokak Xtralife ribbon prints, nothing is going to last!! Until photographers demand
(and are willing to support) printing that lasts, this will continue to be the time
bomb of the digital renaissance.
-- Jeff Mandell, March 7, 1997
http://www.photo.net/equipment/digital/printers/primer (4 of 36)7/3/2005 2:20:36 AM