Winsor Crosby wrote:
>I don't know about these particular models, but in almost every printer
>comparison test in MacWorld in the past 3 or 4 years, Epson has been the
>printer of choice and the Alps model has been near the bottom of the list.
>Negative judgments of the Alps have been concerned about inaccurate and
>muddy colors, besides initial cost, cost of expendables, and slowness.
>Interestingly, the low resolution of the Alps printer is compensated for
>somewhat by the printing medium. Maybe they are finally getting it right?
I don't read MacWorld because I don't own Mac, so I don't know which particular
models and which particular modes of the Alps printers they tested and compared
with the Epson printers.
What I do know is that feeding exactly the same file on the Epson photo printers
and the Alps MD1300 printer in the dye-sub mode shows that the apparent
resolution to the naked eyes is about equal.
I can tell you one experience of mine. When I first started printing the
dye-sub prints, I was still using some old files and was printing a small size,
so I could not tell any resolution problems. When I went to the larger sizes,
5x7 or larger, and was printing my Scotland photographs, one friend of mine said
that I must have a poor vision because my photographs involving architecture,
etc. did not look sharp to her but my close-ups were O.K. My answer then was
that these were digital prints and I thought some digital prints were somewhat
soft.
What I found out later was that I should have applied unsharp mask on my PhotoCD
files. Unsharpness was introduced in the PhotoCD process. Since dyes cover
solidly on the print surface in the dye-sub print, that is, there is absolutely
no gaps of dyes on paper, you need to sharpen the image in the graphic file, not
too much but enough to give a definition. When I got Photoshop late last fall
and started using unsharp mask at the end of every digital improvement on the
PhotoCD file, I got much sharper dye-sub prints.
Therefore it is very important to have a good graphic file which would produce a
sharp print on the Alps printer. I have a feeling that the Alps printer,
particularly in the dye-sub mode, requires very good skills in graphic file
treatment. The Epson printer, being an inkjet printer, can tolerate a range of
graphic files. Since not every pixel is printed on the inkjet printer, IMHO it
is possible to get a decent print without tweaking a graphic file a lot.
As I said yesterday, the Alps printer can print in the MicroDry mode. The
MD1000 model, for example, can do MicroDry printing only. The reputation of the
Alps printer producing muddy colors, etc., might be due to this mode of printing
since this mode uses fade-resisting pigments, which look dull compared to
brilliant dyes which are fade prone. I haven't read any technical papers for
ages to say anything for certainty with respect to the physical mechanism of
the color brilliancy, but they must be due to the light absorption
characteristics of these dyes and the unsaturated chemical bonds involved in
giving rise to the light absorption. These, then, are susceptible to UV
irradiation.
Before I finish, I thought I had better make sure that what I have said about
the sharpness is based on the fact. I looked at the two printouts (dye-sub and
inkjet) of the Testpict.psd from Photoshop 4.0 (on the Photoshop CD, not
included in normal installation) with a loupe. The dye-sub print shows some
lines and hairs in her face while no Epson print does it clearly. I might add
that the lightest dye-sub print (which was made by Doug Smith) does not show as
much of lines and hairs. My two prints are darker than his and they resolve
fine details of her face! Perhaps people do not like the fine resolution which
shows up facial lines. The Epson print shows a smoother face, but the model,
the Fruit Lady as Joel Wilcox named her, even though young, has facial lines on
the dye-sub print if you look under an 8X loupe. With this amount of
enlargement, of course the inkjet print shows dots, so I might be looking at the
resolution beyond what the inkjet print can deliver.
Now I see what I was translating and quoting yesterday from Olympus Photography
was saying about the limitation of the inkjet print and the advantage of the
dye-sub print.
Since I have all the prints and neither Joel nor Denton has any of dye-sub
prints, I am sending them a copy of the best dye-sub print each perhaps as early
as Monday so that they can check on what I am observing today.
If you are new to this list or you have acquired Photoshop recently, the file to
use for this comparison test is found on the Photoshop CD-ROM. Look for the
"Goodies" folder on the CD-ROM and inside this folder, open the "Calibrat"
folder. You will find the Testpict.psd file. This is the name of the file on
Photoshop 4.0. I recall the name of the file might be slightly different on PS
5.0.
Now I found something interesting as I was looking at the printed image with a
loupe. The dyesub print, regardless of the densities, shows a wayward strand of
her hair, dangling on her forehead toward her right eyelash. This is
practically impossible to make out on the inkjet prints. Because I needed to
look up my Photoshop CD-Rom to write the above paragraph, I decided to do an
experiment of cropping off her face to make a small file and printing out from
the JPG file of about 95K compressed. You can still see her dangling strand
under a loupe. Because the size of a printed image is so small (about an inch
square), it occurred to me that this might be a good size and economical way to
distribute the dye-sub print sample for demonstration of the resolution. This
evening I cannot work out the cost, but tomorrow I'll estimate the cost of this
and post it to the list.
Just a thought. Because of this type of small imperfections in her face, the
dye-sub print to the naked eye looks having unresolved darker areas. Since the
inkjet print cannot show these things, it looks smoother and looks having enough
sharpness. That might be what impressed the people in MacWorld. On the other
hand, magazine reviews could be rigged with enough money, which was suggested by
someone on the list with respect to reviews involving photo equipment.
Thanks, Winsor, for stimulating me to look closer at these prints.
Tomoko Yamamoto
mailto:tomokoy@xxxxxxxxx
http://www.charm.net/~tomokoy/
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