on 3/20/04 7:09 AM, Earl R Dunbar at edunbar@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> The recent discussions of printers, especially the Epson 2200, got me to
> thinking about Olympus printers, the P400, 440, etc. And didn't Olympus also
> offer a higher end business printer at one time? Was it Oly technology/
> integration, or just a re-badging?
>
> Anyway, what are the OM-pinions, experiences, suggested applications, etc.?
> What is the software support like? Has anyone seen B&W prints from the
> P400/440?
>
> Earl
Olympus's printers are different technology than Epson's inkjet designs.
Olympus printers are 'dye-sublimination' which works by vaporizing the dyes
and having the vapor deposit on the paper (in extremely small 'dots'). Since
each 'dot' is a puff of vaporized dye, the edges blend softly and evenly
into the adjacent puffs deposits... so "dye-sub" technology yields very
smooth and even color transitions and blends. The downside is that since the
dye deposits are vapor puffs, the crispness of edge details at the extreme
is compromised to a degree. For most images this probably wouldn't be a
critical factor, but if the image has lots of very fine detail in high
contrast, it might. The technology uses a ribbon of dye-containing plastic
sheet and a printhead that heats and vaporizes dots of each dye color as it
passes the appropriate spot... in effect its like an inkjet only printing
dye vapor puffs instead of little squirts of dye color.
I've seen a few Olympus dye-sub prints, and they very closely resemble
actual light-enlarger-liquid-chemistry color prints. They don't look
'digital' at all. The printer supplies e.g. papers and dye rolls, are fairly
expensive, even compared to inkjet prices, but maybe not so bad compared to
traditional chemistry and paper costs.
--
Jim Brokaw
OM-'s of all sorts, and no OM-oney...
The olympus mailinglist olympus@xxxxxxxxxx
To unsubscribe: mailto:olympus-request@xxxxxxxxxx?subject=unsubscribe
To contact the list admins: mailto:olympusadmins@xxxxxxxxxx?subject="Olympus
List Problem"
|