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DYE SUBLIMATION OFFERS INKJET ALTERNATIVE

Most computer users will find that affordable color printing usually comes under the category of "inkjet printers." Inkjet technology has come a long way over the last few years. Higher print resolutions, superior paper quality plus the addition of two extra colors to the four color standard has yielded a generation of inkjets that can produce output rivaling color photographs while remaining relatively inexpensive. But there's always room for improvement and it may come from a technology that until recently was priced way out of range to the ordinary consumer.

Only a few short years ago, dye sublimation printers were in the $10,000 to $50,000 range and therefore used only by professional print houses. Using a thermal transfer process, dye subs have a transparent ribbon that looks much like a roll of plastic wrap. As each color panel on the ribbon passes over the special glossy paper, the dye leaches beneath the surface of the page (thus the term "sublimation") and is usually followed by an additional clear ultraviolet layer that shields the final print from the harmful bleaching effects of light and damage from the other elements. Dye subs are sometimes referred to as "full bleed" or "continuous-tone" printers because the dyes become blended together to form a smooth image. Unlike other printers that rely on dots to form a picture, dye subs literally paint an image on the paper. Even under a magnifying lens, you won't see any graininess. It's very hard to tell the difference between a dye sub image and a photograph.

Olympus has recently introduced three dye sublimation printers starting with the top-of-the-line P400 at $999. It can print an A4 (approximately 8 by 11 inch) color image in around 90 seconds. Inkjets typically require several minutes to do the same. Cost of disposables are also competitive since both the paper and ink cost around $1.90 to print an A4-size image. The other less expensive dye sub models print smaller images but offer features such as portability and the ability to run off of rechargeable batteries.

World's first 4 megapixel camera

The faster the speed, the better the modem. A higher dots-per-inch yields a better printer. With digital cameras, it's how many pixels it has to record an image. Most any respectable digital camera these days is in the megapixel range, a megapixel being a million pixels. One, two and three megapixel cameras have been in the offering but Olympus is the first to have one in the four megapixel range. The Camedia E-10 is one of the sweetest digital cameras you'll want to put in your hands. And its price of $1999 puts this camera squarely in the prosumer range. But to quote my favorite used car salesman, "This baby has everything." It can use both the SmartMedia and CompactFlash removable memory standards at the same time, and has just about every kind of imaging control you can think of. Yet with all that, it can be set to a point and shoot mode so that you don't have to be a professional photographer to use it. Images can be transferred to a PC or Macintosh via its USB connection.

www.olympusamerica.com