Laser transfer of volatile dyes as a means of direct digital printing has been a demonstrated fact for well over a decade. The advantages of the direct laser imaging system are that the process is dry, instantaneous, completely free of chemicals or processing, and can be done in full daylight. Another advantage is that all the amplification in the system is electronic. This allows better control of the signal to noise ratio in the image, just by building better electronic circuits. Silver halide and electrostatic imaging systems show image development artifacts which are, in fact, manifestations of image noise. A high quality color proofing system is described which makes use of the inherent high quality of laser dye transfer imaging, recent advances in high power laser diodes, and a new donor-receiver media set.

Date Published: 18 June 1993
PDF: 4 pages
Proc. SPIE 1912, Color Hard Copy and Graphic Arts II, (18 June 1993); doi: 10.1117/12.146267

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 1912:
Color Hard Copy and Graphic Arts II
Jan Bares, Editor(s)