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| Empower yourself with the language of insiders. We decipher the arcane terms, epigrammatic
abbreviations, and weird words you'll need to purchase the right color printer for
your needs. |
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Color Printers | Industry Lingo
Consumables
Toner, cartridge, developer or any other parts of the printer that must be periodically replaced.
Consumables for some types of color printers are very expensive, ranging up to several dollars
per page for certain large-format printers.
Continuous Tone
A printing technology that combines inks to form a dot of the appropriate color on the page.
Continuous tone printing is primarily used with dye sublimation printers, but some other designs
also utilize this technology. See "dithering".
Dithering
A way of producing colors by placing several differently-colored dots close together on a page.
Dithering requires relatively high printer resolutions for high-quality output, since multiple
dots are required to create the image of a single color. See "continuous tone".
Four Color Printing
A color printing technique that uses cyan, magenta, yellow and black to create all colors of
the spectrum. Four color printing is preferrable to three color systems when you need to combine
black text and color images on a single page. See "three color printing".
Full Bleed
An image that runs right to the edge of a sheet. To create a full bleed, you typically must print
on a larger sheet and trim the page to size.
Pages Per Minute (ppm)
A measurement that refers to the printer's engine speed. Pages per minute is the maximum number
of sheets the printer can physically output each minute. Complex pages with many fonts or complex
graphics will take longer to print.
Printer Languages
How the computer communicates with the printer. Most high-end color printers use the PostScript
language for printing. A few color lasers use PCL5c instead, while many ink-jets use PCL3.
Resolution
The number of dots appearing on a printed page. Dots are measured in dots per inch, or dpi. An
example of this is 600 by 600 dpi output, which indicates 600 dots per inch in both horizontal
and vertical directions. This can also be written as simply 600 dpi.
Smoothing
An image enhancement feature. With smoothing, the printer fills in the jagged edges of an image
with small dots to create a smoother looking line.
Super A
A sheet of paper that is slightly larger than a regular letter sheet. By using Super A paper
and trimming after printing, you can create edge-to-edge images on a letter-sized page. Not
all printers can accept Super A sheets.
Super B
A sheet of paper that is slightly larger than a regular ledger (11" x 17") sheet. By using Super
B paper and trimming after printing, you can create edge-to-edge images on a ledger-sized page.
Relatively few printers can accept Super B sheets.
Three Color Printing
A color printing technique that uses cyan, magenta, and yellow to create colors. Three color
printing does not produce very dark blacks, producing inferior documents when you need to combine
black text and color images on a single page. See "four color printing".
Wicking
A common problem when using standard paper with an ink-jet printer. Wicking refers to the process
whereby ink is absorbed into the paper fibers, creating a slightly smeared or blurry image.
Wicking can be minimized by using smooth paper designed specifically for ink-jets.
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