Acer FotoPrisa 300P - Manual (Page 53)

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FotoPrisa
5.2 FAQ
1.
What is dye sublimation printing?
Dye sublimation works in much the same way as thermal wax
transfer. Thermal wax transfer creates images by selectively
heating colored wax from a ribbon so that it will adhere to paper
or film. The ink is impregnated in the wax. When heat is
applied, the wax melts and is transferred along with the ink to
the paper or film. As an image is printed it goes through a
three-color process and the individual colors yellow, magenta,
cyan (YMC) are each printed to the page. Three-color ribbons
are most commonly used today as black is created by
overlapping the three subtractive colors (YMC), thus eliminating
the final black panel shortens the printing time. Dye sublimation
works in much the same way as thermal wax transfer, but adds
an additional step, which is the sublimation process. Variable
amount of ink would be vaporized depending on the heat
applied to each dot and smooth it into continuous tone photo-
realistic images.
2.
What is the difference between dye-sublimation
printing and inkjet printing?
As mentioned in Q1, a dye-sublimation printer creates images by
selectively heating wax on a ribbon and then transfer the ink on
the paper. This enables each dot in the image to have smooth
and continuous tone and thus makes the whole image look
much like a real photo. An inkjet printer can not create such
continuous tone because an inkjet printer outputs image by
jetting C, M, Y (and K) ink and adjusting the size and position of
each ink dot on the paper to simulate the graduation and tone
of colors. However tiny the dots become, you can still discover
them in the image output. Therefore, when it comes to real
photo-quality output, dye-sublimation is an ideal choice.