Content area
Full Text
For years, computer industry analysts have been forecasting a dramatic rise in color printer sales that will make color common on the desktop. Although sales continue to fall short of these predictions, desktop color printing is alive and well, as this current crop of color thermal transfer printers indicates. These printers are particularly useful in graphic arts, where they let the individual graphic artist compete on even terms with large art departments and graphic design firms. They are also helping to break down the negative view that the traditional art community frequently has of computer-generated art.
Color printers are also migrating to other applications. Increasingly, they are being used by marketing professionals to produce charts and graphs for reports, and transparencies for overhead presentations. They are also used in CAD groups where they are replacing small-format plotters.
In this comparison, we review six color thermal transfer printers. As recently as 1989 thermal transfer printers had failed to break the $10,000 price point. Today, thermal transfer technology is fully mature. The printers in this review range in price from $6,995 to $8,995, and the prices vary in accordance with the amount of memory shipped with the printers. The printers that we review are CalComp's ColorMaster Plus 6603 PS; General Parametrics' SpectraStar Model 430; NEC's ColorMate PS Model 80; Oce Graphics' G5241-PS; QMS' ColorScript 100 Model 10; and the Seiko's ColorPoint PS Model 4.
PostScript is the dominant page description language (PDL) on color printers. Of all the PDLs, it is the most device-independent, having been incorporated on everything from inexpensive laser printers to high-resolution image setters. Because of this, a file generated originally on a 300-dot-per-inch (dpi) color thermal transfer printer can be printed on a 2,400-dpi PostScript image setter, with virtually no alteration to the original file. PostScript Level 2, with its support for device-independent color spaces promises to further this trend. (See sidebar "Why Device-Independent Color," page 74.)
There is a rapidly growing number of alternatives for those interested in color printers. Printer manufacturers are rushing to bring the technologies and products to market that will further the adoption of color. (See sidebar on Color Printer Technologies, page 74). The advent of these technologies is providing alternatives at all price points.
Despite their...