However, that said, there are some common faults that can appear in prints from laser printers:. Track marks on the surface of the paper, caused by the paper feed system. This can also occur with inkjet printing and is reduced by laminating the prints. Metamerism, in which colours look different under different types of lighting. Each printer will reproduce colour balance, brightness and contrast in slightly different ways, which can influence the end result.
Colour and brightness banding can be visible in some prints. All laser printers leave the factory calibrated for document printing; not photo printing. Colour, brightness and saturation adjustments are available, but may not be accessible in Photo mode.
Your donation will help us continue to publish free, independent, useful content for photographers. Paper Choices A wider choice of papers is available for laser printing than for inkjet printers. Laser papers also tend to be cheaper than inkjet papers and come in larger packs, although not necessarily a wider range of sizes. Inkjet printers also have a simpler paper feeding system that allows them to print on thicker papers than laser printers.
If you want good-looking prints, you must be discerning when choosing papers. Avoid plain office paper. The best results will come from coated papers with smooth surfaces and these can come in matte, low-gloss and glossy finishes. The weight of the paper determines how the prints feel when handled.
This illustration shows the subtle differences in colour and tonal rendition produced by different printers. The image in the top left reproduces the original from which the others were printed. An example of the type of image which is difficult to print satisfactorily with a laser printer. Setting Up The drivers in the printers we tried often defaulted back to settings for printing documents on plain paper, so you need to keep checking all the settings each time you make a print — particularly when swapping between image files.
The drivers in the printers we tried all provided suitable settings for heavier-weight, coated paper. A print made on coated paper with the printer driver set for plain paper. Note the streaks resulting from paper incompatibility. The driver in the Samsung CLPDW is more complex than the drivers in the other printers we tested, which may account for our difficulties in applying ICC profiles when printing.
ICC Profiles The three printers we tried allowed use of ICC profiles to help you match the print colours to the colours displayed on your monitor screen.
We used the following settings; Profile — photo prints, Objective — Photos, Colour Mode — select Colour or Black and White, according to the subject type. Then click on the Colour Settings button to open the manual settings pages. Skip the Colour Adjustment page and select the Matching page to access the profile settings.
Opening the Monitor Profile drop-down menu allows you to select your monitor profile. Profile access is also difficult to locate in the printer driver, even in the Advanced section.
Colour Adjustments While all the printer drivers we looked at include adjustments for brightness, contrast and the various colour levels, we would caution users about making adjustments in the printer driver. The adjustments made by the FujiXerox and Canon drivers are simply too great. The Samsung driver supports finer tuning but none of the drivers lets you preview the results of the changes you make before committing to a print.
Save the adjusted image as a copy to ensure it is quicker to print again. These crystals are imperceptible to the naked eye and, before printing, are colorless. To activate this untapped, imperceptible "ink" in the crystals, add heat to the equation. Heat causes a chemical reaction in these specially designed crystals, turning them from colorless crystals to richly colored dye.
Also, interlayers in between the imaging layers listed above keep the imaging layers separate from each other. As the paper goes through the thermal printhead, the color activated depends on the printhead's temperature and time of application. For example, if the printer needs to activate magenta alone, the heat applied will not be hot enough to activate yellow crystals and won't be applied long enough to activate cyan crystals.
The "lower" temperatures and "longer" amounts of time used on these printers are really neither low nor long -- temperatures are hot, ranging from to degrees Fahrenheit to degrees Celsius , and printing one line takes only 16 milliseconds [source: Clarence ]. Different mixtures of cyan, magenta and yellow can yield all the colors that you need to print a quality image.
Each 2-inch by 3-inch sheet contains about billion dye crystals and gets activated by million heat pulses [source: Zink ]. And, although Polaroid's PoGo printer uses 2-inch by 3-inch paper, Zink can produce paper of any size. As Zink and its other partnering companies develop other compatible printers, more sizes will be available.
So, we know this printer is compact and mess-free, but does it have any drawbacks? What are its strengths and weaknesses? Read the next page to learn more. Let my pictures go! Will the pocket-sized device be the Moses of printers -- setting free the enslaved digital images trapped in phones and digital cameras everywhere?
Perhaps, but it might take some more time working in the lab for PoGo to fulfill its promises. Zink's ink-free paper is a descendent of old-fashioned, thermal fax paper technology.
Fax paper is coated with special chemicals, and when heat is applied the paper darkens through a chemical reaction. Zink paper is different because it prints in color as opposed to black and white, like fax paper.
Zink paper also shares similarities with other printing methods, namely dye diffusion thermal transfer or dye sublimation methods. These methods print in color, but are complicated because they use a third material such as a ribbon that contains the ink, which needs to be melted down to the paper. The advantage of Zink is that there's no middleman -- the only materials it needs are the paper and printer. The obvious advantage of the product is that it's small and light.
It can satisfy instant gratification -- you don't have to wait to get home to a stationary printer to get finished prints of your images. And eco-conscious people will find that the paper is recyclable unlike thermal paper and non-toxic.
Also, because there is no ink cartridge or ribbon to dispose of, the printer produces no waste. Given the advantages, you'd expect this technology to take the public by storm. But some drawbacks might prevent it from catching on, at least for a little while. First, some users have complained that the quality of the photo produced by a mobile photo printer is subpar. One expert reviewer for PC Magazine, David Stone, claimed that half of his test photos came out with skewed coloration and that some were "washed out" [source: Stone].
He also tested the supposed water resistance the printer advertises and found that, although the photos sustain drops that are immediately wiped off, the image suffers if drops dry on it.
Time will tell whether these kinks can be ironed out in later advances. And finally, Stone confirms the obvious suspicion that heat affects these images post-printing given that heat is creates the print in the first place. When he held a print up to a hot light bulb , the colors became altered.
If you'll remember, it takes temperatures of at least degrees Fahrenheit degrees Celsius to activate crystals in Zink paper. Although photos are unlikely to experience these temperatures normally, it's best to keep them away from hot areas, like the oven or stove.
Unlike with thermal fax paper, temperatures are unlikely to get hot enough in a sun -baked car to affect Zink paper. For more information on your camera , cell phone and other everyday technology, peruse the links on the next page. Sign up for our Newsletter! Mobile Newsletter banner close. Mobile Newsletter chat close. Mobile Newsletter chat dots. Mobile Newsletter chat avatar. Mobile Newsletter chat subscribe.
Computer Peripherals. We go together: Polaroid is teaming with its spinoff company to make an instant, ink-free mobile photo printer. Ink-free Portable Photo Printer Specifics " ". Printing from a digital camera requires connecting a USB wire. Go, Grease Lightning! These microscopic crystals are the only "ink" that Zink paper needs.
Base layer : This first layer provides the paper template on which to place layers of crystals. This layer can also have an adhesive back, as with the Polaroid PoGo instant mobile printer. Cyan imaging layer : an image-forming layer that releases a cyan-colored dye when activated at a lower temperature for a long time.
Magenta imaging layer : the layer that releases magenta dye when activated at a medium temperature for a medium amount of time. Yellow imaging layer : This layer releases yellow dye when activated at a high temperature for a short amount of time.
Overcoat layer : Last, but not least, is this protective layer of clear polymer that seals the paper, which allows it to resist damage from light, heat and water.
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