Full Color Printer: Defined

A full color printer is a printer capable of printing multiple colors. Almost all color printers are based on the CMYK color model (though some are in the RGB model), which prints a combination four basic colors: cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. The CMYK color model can be used to create almost all other colors with the exception of a few specialized colors such as florescent or metalic colors. This is the technique used in process color offset printing used to print most books and magazines. Some of the more economical printers just use three colors: cyan, magenta, and yellow. These printers cannot print true black, however and their colors are not as vivid or saturated.

Color printers use different techniques to print different colors:

• Thermal dye transfer: also called dye sublimation, uses heat ribbons that contain dye. The dyes are diffused onto specially coated paper or plastic transparency. These printers are expensive and slow, but they produce smooth vivid images that most closely resemble the origional photographs or artwork. Remember that you need a special coated paper, which can be very expensive. A different kind of thermal dye transfer printer called the snapshot printer can produce smaller photographic snapshots at a much lower cost.
• Thermal wax transfer: use wax-based inks that get melted and then applied to regular paper or transparency. Unlike thermal dye, these printers print in tiny dots. Images printed using this method must be dithered first which makes them not as crisp an clear, but still very good. The advantages of this printing method over thermal dye transfer is the speed and the fact that no special paper or material is needed for printing.
• Solid ink-jet: also called wax jet. This process works by melting dyed wax and spraying it onto paper. This can produce bright, vivid color on any kind of paper. The disadvantage to solid ink-jet printing is the slow speed and high cost.
• Laser Color: The primary principle at work in a laser printer is static electricity. A laser printer uses this phenomenon as a sort of "temporary glue." The core component of this system is the photoreceptor, typically a revolving drum or cylinder that is given a total positive charge by the charge corona wire. As the drum revolves, the printer shines a tiny laser beam across the surface to discharge certain points "drawing" the letters and images to be printed into an electrostatic image. The printer then coats the drum with positively charged powder toner which clings to the negative discharged areas of the drum. Finally, the printer passes the paper through a pair of heated rollers called the fuser. As the paper passes through the the fuser, the powder toner melts into the fibers in the paper and the fuser rolls the paper to the output tray. Color laser uses the same principle as monochrome laser printers, but they use four toners instead of just one. Laser printers produce a much better quality print than ink-jet, but they are also much more costly.
• Color ink-jet: ink-jet is the least expensive color printing process. They use three or four separate nozzles, each with its own color of liquid ink that sprays directly onto the surface of the paper.