🚀 go-pugleaf

> Actually, these are _not_ thermal wax printers; the newer models are,
> but these two are not.  They are dye sublimation printers.  These two
> use color transfer rolls and will produce photorealistic,
> continuous-tone images.

No, the Phaser PX truly does not produce continuous-tone images.

I believe you're thinking of "phase change" or "solid ink" printers.
The new Tektronix printers do, indeed, melt blocks of wax that look
like fat boxy crayons.

However, the Phaser PX was technically called a "thermal wax" printer
because the color transfer rolls are plastic sheets coated with layers
of colored wax pigment.  A thermal head melts a dot of wax,
transferring it from the sheet to the coated paper medium.  Each color
of each pixel is either 100% (a dot was transferred there) or 0% (no
dot was transferred there.)  This is not continuous tone.

By contrast, a dye sub printer vaporizes a bit of die from a color
roll to transfer it to the paper medium.  This vaporization permits
several possible amounts of die for each dot, allowing a range of
pixel values between 0% and 100%, hence "continuous" tone.

There's a good explanation of all this, complete with illustrations, at
"http://www.tektronix.com/Color_Printers/reference/printek.html"

  -=- Andrew Klossner (andrew@teleport.com)