On Jun 28, 14:09, Patty Jansma wrote:
>
> Has anyone heard of a Primera Color printer? We received an ad today a dye
>  sub/thermal wax printer for $949. Dye sub prints are $2.79 each and
> thermal wax are $.45.
>
>
 
 
There is a review of dye-sub printers in July-94 MacWorld.
We also just had a demo of the Seiko ColorPoint-2 dual
wax/dye-sub printer, which left me quite impressed.
The Seiko is new and was not able to be included in the
review, but they mentioned it in a side bar explaining the
difference in the method used by Seiko vs the Primera.
 
In it they explain that wax printing is a binary process -
either the dye melts or it doesn't, and there is a sharp
edge to each dot, while dye-sub produces continuous tones
because the hotter the element, the greater density of dye
it transfers. Also, the dye-sub pixel have soft edges and
have to be placed closer than wax or white-space gaps between
the pixels will degrade image quality. The Seiko overcomes
this by double-stepping the media with two smaller pixels
placed side-by-side.
 
Quoting the side-bar to the review article:
 
"In contrast, Fargo Electronics' inexpensive dual-mode Primera
disreguards the subtle differences between dye and wax heads and uses
a single temperature for bothe dye and wax. A dither pattern creates
multiple colors in dye as well as was. This yields output inferior
to that of the Seiko method."
 
 
-- Steve Majewski       (804-982-0831)      <[log in to unmask]> --
-- UVA Department of Molecular Physiology and Biological Physics --
-- Box 449 Health Science Center        Charlottesville,VA 22908 --
 
   [ "Cognitive Science is where Philosophy goes when it dies ...
        if it hasn't been good!" - Jerry Fodor  ]