Acer 300P user manual 5.2 FAQ, What is dye sublimation printing?, FotoPrisa

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5.2FAQ

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.

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