Sample
photograph to show all the gray levels that a high-quality laser
printer is capable of, if properly tweaked.
|
|
|
Above
are two views of the same identical photograph
(bricks in Copan Ruinas, Honduras, Central America). Each
photo is tweaked in a different manner in the new channel
mixer mode of Adobe PhotoShop ver 5.
|
The
QMS printer can handle any range of the gray scale (both prints
are from a QMS 2060 at 11x17 inch size). The photo on the right
was imaged to produce a subtle range of variations; the photo on
the left includes heightened contrast. The QMS can handle the entire
range. Part of this print quality comes from the ability of tweaking
the lpi, lines per inch. If you are stuck with default, the images
have as much contrast and grayscale spectrum as mud. If you set
the left photo for 90 lpi and the right photo at 94 lpi you get
even more variation. For Photoshop imaging, please note that lpi
is set on the printer software; this is not dpi you sent in image
size.
These
photographs are part of a series specially taken to test the capabilities
of laser printers. QMS turned out to be the best in class. We use
it in our office every day, indeed I have parked my Lexmark and
HP printers in storage because they cannot achieve this quality.
I used the HP only for simple letters since it does not offer true
1200 dpi photo quality. I like my Lexmark Optra N and Lexmark Optra
R, but neither can match the quality of a QMS.
If
you do desktop publishing, in-house printing, or operate a repro
shop for short-run printing, you can use your laser printer to produce
photographs, if, if you select a printer which can handle photographs.
After checking around and looking at what was available elsewhere,
we have settled on the QMS 2060 series. If you produce professional
photographs you probably want a professional laser printer. QMS
printers are available nationwide from Publishing Perfection, 1
(800) 810-1617, www.publishingperfection.com
QMS
also makes color laser printers that can handle 11x17 full bleed.
You can max out the RAM at 384 MB. This quantity of RAM will surely
speed up printing full-page color photographs.
|
|
FLAAR offers for you more information about this subject |
|
|
