RE: digital printers

[David Hibbeln <dhibbeln@xxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Ms Breger,

One of the finest printers for color at the consumer level is 
the ALP-MD5000p. www.alps.com  See Alps@xxxxxxxxxxx (http://www.egroups.com
for mailing list.

Printer is dye-sublimatation with 2400 dpi. Uses a thermal wax ribbon.
Results are awesome with undercoats/overcoats availble. Since is
dye-sublimatation is relativly archival. 

Those people who have it are very rabid in their joy. Prints on decals,
bumper sticker, t-shirt transfer stock and also you can make coffee mugs.
Also prints silver or gold foil.

Issues are:

1) ALPS has dicontinued manufacture for USA market. Is in England and Asia.
You can find machines on ebay or compuserve.		
2) Service, Ribbons, etc will be here for next five years.
3) To use you need Adobe Photoshop ,etc and sometimes even something like
Adobe Pagemaker to take advantage of all features.

>From my own testing. Test was to put ink jets from HP, EPSON and Alps in
direct sunlight in south facing window. Inkjet inks faded in less the 2
months. ALPS is still close to reference that is keep in deep freeze in the
dark after 6 months.

However, if you are looking to to inkjets, and want a good production model,
with say 11/17 full bleed on inkjet with up to 13/19 paper take a look at
the HP DesignJet ColorPro GA

http://www.pandi.hp.com/pandi-db/prodinfo.main?product=designjetcolorproga

Has native Adobe Postcript and coexist with Macs and PC on networks.

Cost is reasonable also. HP lists at  $1681.00. I have seen it for less
$1300 to $1400.
 
Regards,

David R. Hibbeln
IT Director - Tobin & Collins CPA PA
voice 201-487-7744    fax 201-487-8848   email - dhibbeln@xxxxxxxxx



> 
> In <URL:news:lokaal.panorama> on Thu 16 Nov, Dee Breger wrote:
> 
> > I create both b/w and colorized digital enhancements of electron
> > photomicrographs and am looking for info on the most 
> archival/sophisticated
> > but also cost-effective method to print them as equivalent to art
> > photography.  I'm confused about the relative pros and cons 
> among the
> > digital printing technologies such as dye sub, ink jet, 
> Iris, etc., not to
> > mention the various kinds of papers.