|
A type of printing technology that is similar to thermal transfer except that dye pigments are used rather than thermoplastic ink. The dyes are contained in a transfer ribbon made of plastic film. The printing head contains thousands of heating elements, which are each capable of producing as many as 256 different temperatures. The varying temperatures of the heating elements cause varying amounts of pigment to be deposited from the transfer ribbon onto the printing surface. The result of this process is the creation of different densities of color that are necessary to reproduce the image. When the dye pigments are heated, they go through a process called sublimation, in which a solid changes directly into a gas. When the dye, in the form of a gas, makes contact with a specially coated paper, it changes back into a solid. The individual spots of dye created with the thermal dye sublimation process blend together to create an image that has a continuous tone quality similar to that of an actual photograph.
|
