articles/Printers/dnpds80printer-page3

DNP DS80 Dye Sublimation Printer - part 3 of 1 2 3

by Mike McNamee Published 01/04/2012

Greyscale linearity

We paid particular attention to the greyscale linearity and colour drift. The tone linearity from the 727-patch target was good with measurable separation at both highlight and shadow ends of the scale. The highlighs were variously differentiated at 250 points although in one instant they seem to be handling a difference at 254 RGB points. Like previous dye sub testing we found a tendency to drift towards a pink cast in the highlights and we were unable to pin down exactly why, it might be an ambient temperature effect. These, by the way are not levels that would disturb a typical print client, photographers tend to worry more about such matters.

The variations of neutrality down the tone scale were more marked than a well-profiled Epson K3 ink set, presumably because of the lack of Under Colour Replacement in the driver (no blacks or greys in the ink set in other words!). This is not a printer that could be used for proofing. On the Fogra V3 test patches the green delivered a high error of 11.2 ?E Lab in spite of our best endeavours, almost twice the allowable error for proofing. The chromatic greys produced an error of 6.5 compared with a Fogra demand of <1.5 ?E Lab.

Real prints

One of the good things about this review is that Martin Sellars has produced two full rolls of prints of real work! He is pleased with the results which is a real plus for the DS 80 as he is very critical and has a superb ability to pinpoint colour errors. Overall we saw a couple of prints drifting towards pink in the highlights, an effect exaggerated in any kind of fluorescent light. Compared with RA14 prints the DS80 ones had more saturation in the reds, we averaged the measurements and they are plotted. In the graph the RA14 value is far more inboard, ie less saturated which is how the eye perceived the prints.

Overall

Dye subs have obviously moved on since we last tested them being lighter, faster, smaller and with improved quality (once we had resolved the colour management issues). Martin made an additional point that having made many hundreds of prints with the DS 80 he has only had a couple of flawed prints (with specks in the image) a considerable improvement over his previous Kodak dye sub printer. Overall then this has been both and interesting and impressive set of tests and results.

• DNP DS80 Dye Sublimation Printer page 1
  
• DNP DS80 Dye Sublimation Printer page 2
  
• DNP DS80 Dye Sublimation Printer page 3
  

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