Digital Printing Flashcards
How does a dye sublimation printer work?
- Sheet of ribbon, CMYK impregnated.
- Heated by different elements at different temperatures moving across ribbon.
- Dyes vaporise and bond with coated paper.
- UV resistant gloss applied.
What are the pros and cons of dye sublimation printers?
Pros: High quality image, lack of grain, rich tone, print on fabric and ceramic.
Cons: High cost per print.
How does a thermal wax printer work?
- Dye suspended in wax in ribbon.
- Applied to specially coated paper.
- Heat = wax melts.
- Final image composed of small coloured dots.
What are the pros and cons of a thermal wax printer?
Pros: Bright colours, High speed.
Cons: Need specially coated paper, dot pattern.
What is a wide carriage inkjet printer?
- A large printer specialising in banners.
- Does not produce to a high resolution but is viewed fro far away.
- Lack of permanence.
How does a Giclée inkjet work?
- Outputs onto watercolour paper.
- Used for high quality originals and accurate reproduction.
- Large rotating drum.
- Stream of ink directed through nozzles.
- Uses CMYK droplets smaller than human blood cells.
What are the pros and cons of a giclée inkjet?
Pros: Good for artwork, good quality, accurate, accepted by galleries.
Cons: Time consuming, expensive, non-compact.
How does a thermo autochrome printer work?
- Special paper with CMY layers activated at certain temperatures.
- Paper goes through the printer and heat head heats tiny areas and the hidden colours are revealed.
- Creates 256 CMY variations 17 million colours.
- UV light across the paper = fixing colours and preventing unactivated ink from developing.
What are the pros and cons of thermo autochrome printer?
Pros: only paper required = less of environmental impact, good quality, not complex, good for people with little printer expertise.
Cons: Printed area fades with time, heat sensitive - light could cause entire page to darken.
How does a digital photo printer work?
- Uses light to expose directly onto backlit film or photographic paper.
- Some use a beam of light used by LED lasers.
What are the pros and cons of digital photo printers?
Pros: stable, ultra sharp, continuous tone enlargement, quick, saves labour.
Cons: expensive - high initial cost.
Explain how an inkjet printer works.
- Piezoelectric technique - delivers ink to the surface.
- Uses crystals to expand and contract when different voltages are applied.
- Vibrations of crystals causes volume of ink to be sprayed onto paper.
What are the pros and cons of an inkjet printer?
Pros: blend colours and tones smoothly, low start up cost, different types of paper, no warm up time, ink cartridges = refillable, smaller, lighter, easy to maintain.
Cons: waterbased = water damage, ink cartridges need cleaning, can’t cope with large volumes, text can get grey and fuzzy.
How do colour laser printers work?
- Apple colour toner to drum and finely focused laser beam directs.
- Drum is electrostatic ally charged accepts tour and rolls out onto receiving paper and is heat fused.
What are the pros and cons of colour laser printers?
Pros: quick and no special paper required.
Cons: lower quality and gradients aren’t as smooth.
