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Dick Margulis is <<... seeking opinions from those of you who are in the
color copier/color laser space.>>
I don't have direct experience with most of these devices, but have done a
fair bit of reading on them. Most of what I know is from articles in PC
Magazine (their annual review of color printers should be online at
www.pcmag.com) and Publish (www.publish.com). Have a look at the article
archives to get more detailed information than I can provide here. On that
basis:
<<The HP technology emulates the four-color separation process used in
traditional film-based offset lithography. Being an old stick-in-the-mud, I
find this very appealing.>>
It's an appealing process if you're going to be using the laser as a
proofing device, and converting to offset printing for final production.
It's nice to be able to replace each toner reservoir separately, plus you
get better blacks than with three-color printers, and the toner lasts longer
without fading than most inks. (Though Epson just introduced a
fade-resistant ink that sounds promising.) But lasers and wax-based printers
do a lousy job of simulating dot gain, which is why most four-color proofing
is still done on Iris inkjet printers and competing devices.
<<Xerox uses a stochastic process, which eliminates the regular grid and
rosette pattern of the screen-based method.>>
Stochastic ("frequency modulated") screening appears extremely promising,
and may well entirely replace the traditional line-screen approach within a
few years for high-end color. (The basic notion is that instead of using
dots of different sizes positioned at a regular grid spacing--the
traditional approach--you use dots of a single size, and space them closer
together to produce darker shades.) The printer drivers that produce these
screens are still relatively immature (less than 5 years old or thereabouts,
vs. up to 20 years old for line-screen print drivers), and may still need
some debugging for certain applications. Moreover, many commercial printers
are still unfamiliar with the technology and may not want to work with it. I
suspect that stochastic printing will prove particularly important in years
to come as "direct to plate" printing becomes more common.
<<Ricoh uses something they call contone technology (maybe that should be
capitalized; I'm not sure) that, under a lens, looks like the lines on a tv
screen, like the old analog AP wire photo technology.>>
Haven't seen it, so I can't comment. But if it's line based, you'll have to
make sure you understand the process well enough to guard against moire
patterns.
<<Am I just being a reactionary? Is one of these newer technologies actually
a better way of doing things, only I'm just not getting it?>>
No, you're exercising "due diligence". I suspect you'll find that each of
the technologies has a sufficiently unique combination of advantages and
disadvantages that you'll have to match them individually to the types of
job you're doing.
"Technical writing... requires understanding the audience, understanding
what activities the user wants to accomplish, and translating the often
idiosyncratic and unplanned design into something that appears to make
sense."--Donald Norman, The Invisible Computer
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