| Re: color printers for transparencies [message #16115 is a reply to message #15950] |
Mon, 28 June 1999 00:00  |
Struan Gray
Messages: 178
Registered: December 1995
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Senior Member |
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Martin Schultz, mgs@io.harvard.edu writes:
> Thanks for your feedback (you may also tell me which
> printers we should definitively not consider), please don't
> mention printers with a pricetag above $3000.
The newest inkjet and colour laser printers are surprisingly good,
but suffer from the weak colour you mentioned, as well as
colour-banding in areas that should contain smoothly-varying tones.
Also, if you want to print on paper to submit figures to journals who
don't take them electronically, the pre-print scanning process usually
introduces moire artifacts from the dither pattern. That said, the
high basic dot-pitch makes such printers sharper for vector-graphics.
For true continuous tone printers your price limit indicates a
'cheap' dye-transfer printer or the Tektronix wax-transfer machines.
According to my most recent (Swedish) MacWarehouse catalogue, the
current Tek printer is the Phaser 840N, but that has full-duplex
capability so there may be simpler versions available too.
The Kodak dye-sub printers have slightly better tonality and
colour gamut, but they represent a big jump in price when bought new.
They have been around long enough that used versions are available,
and current ribbons and paper are compatible with the older machines.
We have a Kodak. Overheads are excellent, but can be
easily-damaged by scratches or fingerprints if you don't put them in
slip-in sheets or use the 4-way ribbon that adds a protective layer
over the colours. Text can be spindly and fuzzy at sizes below about
12 point, but anything large enough to comprehensible on a viewgraph
be fine. Images have a lovely long tonal range, and paper prints scan
beautifully. The printer accepts postscript across the network so
everyone can print to it, and Kodak provides custom drivers and/or
colour management profiles so you can calibrate your screen properly
(operating system allowing).
I would recommend looking for a used Kodak, or doing what I did
and twisting arms until several departments clubbed together for a new
one. Otherwise, the only trial output I saw that came close in
continuous tone quality was the Tektronix. Everything else was in a
poor second place. In this price class and above you can usually send
the manufacturer/distributor one of your own files to print out and
see the differences for yourself.
Struan
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