Re: Printing 3-D

[P3D John Ohrt <johrt@xxxxxxx>]

P3D Lincoln Kamm wrote:
> 
> I happened to notice an add in the newspaper for the new Epson Stylus 800
> inkjet printer.  It prints 1,440 dpi!  That is twice as good as the last one
> they put out.  It is photo graphic quallity at full color.  It cost around
> $450 (that is what I payed for my canon a few years ago that is 360 dpi).  I
> haven't had a first hand look at it yet, so I can't say for sure how good
> the images look, but If they look twice as good as there one that prints
> 720dpi, then I am going to have to save up for that.  Has anyone tried
> printing stereo images with this printer?

The word on the net is that its color quality is better than the Epson
Pro but its print quality is below that of a 600 dpi laser.

If you want the best color from an inkjet, Epson 800 is the technology. 
If you want good quality printing, Canon or HP can take it and much much
faster.  To be fair, the 800 is faster than the pro at printing, but
that is still slllooowww.

If you want color quality, you go dyesub.  I'll bet a 200 dpi dyesub
will easily outperform an Epson 800, because I have seen a demo by guys
who really hack printers of an old Fargo versus an Epson Pro.  Anyone
can easily spot the difference.  The current 8.5x11 Fargo is 300x600. 
While it costs over $1000, the per sheet cost is lower than an inkjet. 
While the quality is great, a Fargo is one of the slowest printers in
creation.

If you are into 4x6 or smaller, check out a Fargo Fotofun ($400 list). 
It prints 4x6 paper stock or postcards or mug transfers (anyone into
stereo mugs?).  Like its big brother, per sheet costs run about $1 US. 
Both printers come with software to print multiple images per sheet of
various sizes.

By the way, I believe Fuji is also coming out with a 4x6 dyesub.

Even with simple anaglyphs, a dyesub is far superior to an inkjet.  A
dye sub can assign any of 16M colors to a dot, where an inkjet (CMYK)
requires 4 dots to achieve 16M colors, and the four colours, cyan,
magenta,yellow, and black are specifically chosen to be high color
contrast.  In an anaglyph, you need only one color to represent cyan,
but 2, yellow and magenta, to represent red.

However, money being what it is, you can do all your proofing on a
inkjet and then buy a dyesub print for your best work.

Epson 800's are nice, but the older and cheaper Canons and HPs are a
tremendous value.  Recently, brand new Canon BJC-210 where selling for
$188 CDN  ( $141 in real money) complete with manufacturers warantees
etc even in Regina.  An Epson 800, no.  But definitely good enough for
proofing.  If you can afford 3x the price and lust to own an 800 go for
it.  But all you are getting, IMHO, is a better quality proof printer.

The above comments apply to "photorealism".  They can all make great
Christmas cards. :-)

Until you've seen a dyesub, you haven't seen photorealistic copy.  These
95% photorealistic ads are just refuse straight from the bovine source.

IMHO, if you can't print decent 2D, don't even think about 3D.

Regards,
John
--
John Ohrt,  Regina, SK, Canada
johrt@xxxxxxx



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