After the bubble collapses, more ink is drawn from the reservoir. As the printhead heats up, a bubble is produced and the increased pressure inside the printhead chamber forces the ink droplet out. The thermal process, used by the Canon Bubble Jet Printer, is based on heating a resister in the printhead. There are two main types: thermal and piezoelectric. The other type of printer, drop-on-demand, uses only ink droplets needed to form the image produced. The Iris printer is an example of the continuous-flow printer. As the ink droplets are released, charged droplets are deflected and recycled while the uncharged particles spray a continuous stream of microscopic ink droplets onto a flat substrate. The Iris printer and popular Epson Stylus® Photo printers are the best known of these systems.Ĭontinuous-flow inkjet printers use an electrostatic charge to push ink out of the printhead reservoir. There are two types of technologies for inkjet printers: continuous flow and drop-on-demand or impulse jet. Inkjet systems are based on the flow of colored ink from a nozzle that is deposited on a support to form an image. Inkjet is the most widely used printing technology for digital fine art prints. The images composed of pigment particles are generally stable but are not often used for photo-quality printing. In this process, the toner is transferred to an uncoated paper base then fused into place. Since the paper receives the dye layers separately, the print can result in a smooth, seamless image.Įlectrography includes laser prints and photocopies. The dye, now in gaseous form, is absorbed into the paper. When the head heats up, it vaporizes (sublimates) the dye in that location. It is still a wet process and is considered a chromogenic color print.ĭye sublimation, used by desktop units by Canon Selphy, and kiosk printers by Kodak Picture Maker, work with a single-color ribbon containing dye heated by a special head that runs the width of the paper. The digital silver halide process (examples include Lambda and Kodak Pegasus) uses light sensitive paper exposed by lasers or LEDs and then chemically processed. The receiving paper with its transferred dyes is peeled off and separated from the donor paper. Small amounts of water or heat are applied to create the dye image on the donor paper, which is then transferred to the “receiving” paper with a combination of heat and pressure. The process, a combination of photographic and thermal dye diffusion methods, involves exposing a sheet of photosensitive “donor” paper to laser diodes (LD). The photothermographic transfer (examples include the Fuji Pictrography) is a high-end, large-format device used in many photo labs to print snapshots. The most common ones include the digital photo process, dye sublimation, electrography, and the inkjet, which came into significant use in 1998. There are a variety of output devices that can be used to print digital image files. Further readings, such as NEDCC’s preservation leaflets 5.4 Creating Long-lasting Inkjet Prints and 5.5 Storage Enclosures for Photographic Materials, and resources listed below provide more information on the care and identification of digital output media. This leaflet introduces the basic types and processes of digital output media and serves as a primer for the identification of these materials. Northeast Document Conservation Center introduction Resources for Town, Municipal, and County Clerks.Caring for Private and Family Collections.Chapter 5: Disaster Preparedness and Response.
Chapter 4: Managing Digital Audiovisual Collections.Chapter 3: Planning, Preparing, and Implementing Reformatting Projects.Chapter 1: Care and Handling of Audiovisual Collections.Fundamentals of AV Preservation Texbook.Digital Preservation Assessment Training.Fundamentals of Photograph Preservation.How Can an Assessment Benefit Your Collection?.