"Light Field" imager for phones, Kinect style uses

[VJ]

On my printer, you can clearly see it printing CMY in different passes (the paper comes out of the printer during the different passes). The ribbon has 10x15 CMY bands, and these get used only once (you see the photo "missing" from the used ribbon. The colour components get printed one at a time, and just over each other. As a result of that, they get mixed...

[Gurm]

That's how the portable ones work, yes. My connection dropped halfway through my last post.

The portable ones work in multiple passes - C, M, Y, and K - moving the photo paper in and out from underneath the head.

This is why they take so long.

Professional dye-sub - or even the bigger commercially available units - have separate color spools, much like big rolls of saran wrap and a mixing system.

[xortam]

dye sublimation

Ages ago I was having 8x10 color enlargements made from film and they were starting to use dye sublimation. The last time I looked at home color printing the quality choice was color laser jets (at least $1K for the printer alone). That's been quite awhile ago and I didn't know they brought dye sub to the home market. Are there reasonably priced printers that take film and transparency as well as digital images or does one need to buy a separate scanner? I really should scan in my old "analogs" sometime. It would be neat to print up some of those old pictures without going into a darkroom.

[xortam]

Looking at the Canon site, I only see two models of compact dye sub Selphy printers. I don't see any dye subs that can print larger than 4x6 and they're limited to 300 dpi. While that may be fine for a cheap portable printer, I want something much more capable for home printing. Looks like you need to go with ink jet for photos up to 8x10/legal where Canon is concerned. You also need to be concerned about driver support going forward if the printer isn't capable enough in stand-alone mode. I have a feeling that home color photo printing isn't a big enough market to see really capable products being produced. Maybe 8x10/11x14 home dye sub printers would be too cost prohibitive except for the productive professional.