Olympus P-10 Dye Sub Printer

[Scott]

I purchased an Olympus P-10 4x6 dye sub printer a few weeks ago, and
am now asking that Olympus provide me with a refund. All of my prints
have "jaggies" or a notched effects, particularly notable on diagonal
lines and features. Olympus now tells me that new drivers,
availability date unknown, may address this problem. Going back to my
Epson R800 - beautiful prints.

Anybody else have seen this problem (or did anyone else but me buy
this printer?)

Scott

 

[Bob Headrick]

I purchased an Olympus P-10 4x6 dye sub printer a few weeks ago, and
am now asking that Olympus provide me with a refund. All of my prints
have "jaggies" or a notched effects, particularly notable on diagonal
lines and features. Olympus now tells me that new drivers,
availability date unknown, may address this problem. Going back to my
Epson R800 - beautiful prints.

Anybody else have seen this problem (or did anyone else but me buy
this printer?)

I am not familiar with the details of the P-10, but dye sub printers are often
relatively low resolution (206 ppi?), with a very large color depth at each
pixel. Low resolution/high color depth is best for faces, landscapes and other
images that do not have sharp lines, especially diagonals.

Regards,
Bob Headrick, not speaking fro my employer HP
MS MVP Printing/Imaging

 

[Scott]

I am not familiar with the details of the P-10, but dye sub printers are often
relatively low resolution (206 ppi?), with a very large color depth at each
pixel. Low resolution/high color depth is best for faces, landscapes and other
images that do not have sharp lines, especially diagonals.

Regards,
Bob Headrick, not speaking fro my employer HP
MS MVP Printing/Imaging

Bob,

Thanks for the response. The P-10 has a resolution of ~314 (depending
where one reads it or whom one speaks to at Olympus.) Interesting
idea about the cause for the "jaggies" I am seeing. It is definitely
the sharp diagonals that appear to suffer the most.

Scott

 

[SamSez]

Thanks for the response. The P-10 has a resolution of ~314 (depending
where one reads it or whom one speaks to at Olympus.) Interesting
idea about the cause for the "jaggies" I am seeing. It is definitely
the sharp diagonals that appear to suffer the most.

Scott

If it's over 300dpi, you should not see ANY jaggies -- unless your original
image is very low resolution [like, 640 or 720 x 480].

As long as your starting image has a reasonably high resolution, use something
like photoshop elements to resize to the desired final print size and actual
printer resolution [dpi] before sending it off to the printer -- and tell the
printer driver to not do any subsequent re-sizing on its own.

A 300dpi dye-sub should look as good as a wet process print from a decent
finisher.

 

[Ron]

Thanks for the response. The P-10 has a resolution of ~314 (depending
where one reads it or whom one speaks to at Olympus.) Interesting
idea about the cause for the "jaggies" I am seeing. It is definitely
the sharp diagonals that appear to suffer the most.

Scott

If it's over 300dpi, you should not see ANY jaggies -- unless your original
image is very low resolution [like, 640 or 720 x 480].

As long as your starting image has a reasonably high resolution, use something
like photoshop elements to resize to the desired final print size and actual
printer resolution [dpi] before sending it off to the printer -- and tell the
printer driver to not do any subsequent re-sizing on its own.

A 300dpi dye-sub should look as good as a wet process print from a decent
finisher.

I agree. I have an old P300 Olympus Dye-sub printer and it makes great 4X6
prints. It just depends on the resolution of what you're printing.

Ron

 

[Scott]

Thanks for the response. The P-10 has a resolution of ~314 (depending
where one reads it or whom one speaks to at Olympus.) Interesting
idea about the cause for the "jaggies" I am seeing. It is definitely
the sharp diagonals that appear to suffer the most.

Scott

If it's over 300dpi, you should not see ANY jaggies -- unless your original
image is very low resolution [like, 640 or 720 x 480].

As long as your starting image has a reasonably high resolution, use something
like photoshop elements to resize to the desired final print size and actual
printer resolution [dpi] before sending it off to the printer -- and tell the
printer driver to not do any subsequent re-sizing on its own.

A 300dpi dye-sub should look as good as a wet process print from a decent
finisher.

I agree. I have an old P300 Olympus Dye-sub printer and it makes great 4X6
prints. It just depends on the resolution of what you're printing.

Ron

Thanks for the responses.

The original are from a Canon G5 - most taken as Canon Raw (some as
jpg.) Original size is 2592 pixels x 1944 pixels, opened with either
PhotoShop CS raw converter or Canon File Viewer as at 300dpi (8.64" x
6.48"); resampled Bicubic to 6" x 4.5"; cropped to 6" x 4"; then sent
to the printer. (Sent directly to an Epson R800 printer the results
are flawless - to send the same photo to the P-10 and not have it sent
way off the edges, I have to use PhotoShop's "Print with Preview" and
then select "Scale to Fit Media", which reduces it to 78.97% (3.159" x
4.738")- which then gives about the same visible picture area as seen
on the R800. There is a slight difference in size of the paper - the
Epson is 4x6" - the Olympus is 100x148mm.

Any other ideas, anyone?

Scott

 

[SamSez]

Thanks for the response. The P-10 has a resolution of ~314 (depending
where one reads it or whom one speaks to at Olympus.) Interesting
idea about the cause for the "jaggies" I am seeing. It is definitely
the sharp diagonals that appear to suffer the most.

Scott

If it's over 300dpi, you should not see ANY jaggies -- unless your original
image is very low resolution [like, 640 or 720 x 480].

As long as your starting image has a reasonably high resolution, use something
like photoshop elements to resize to the desired final print size and actual
printer resolution [dpi] before sending it off to the printer -- and tell the
printer driver to not do any subsequent re-sizing on its own.

A 300dpi dye-sub should look as good as a wet process print from a decent
finisher.

I agree. I have an old P300 Olympus Dye-sub printer and it makes great 4X6
prints. It just depends on the resolution of what you're printing.

Ron

Thanks for the responses.

The original are from a Canon G5 - most taken as Canon Raw (some as
jpg.) Original size is 2592 pixels x 1944 pixels, opened with either
PhotoShop CS raw converter or Canon File Viewer as at 300dpi (8.64" x
6.48"); resampled Bicubic to 6" x 4.5"; cropped to 6" x 4"; then sent
to the printer. (Sent directly to an Epson R800 printer the results
are flawless - to send the same photo to the P-10 and not have it sent
way off the edges, I have to use PhotoShop's "Print with Preview" and
then select "Scale to Fit Media", which reduces it to 78.97% (3.159" x
4.738")- which then gives about the same visible picture area as seen
on the R800. There is a slight difference in size of the paper - the
Epson is 4x6" - the Olympus is 100x148mm.

Any other ideas, anyone?

Scott

same idea as before -- scale with the tool, and don't post-scale -- either with
the printer driver or with 'scale to fit'.

 

[Arthur Entlich]

Dye sub printers have a different technology than that used for inkjet.
With dye-sub, each image pixel is represented by one pixel or dot on
the printed page. They typically have a resolution of between 250 and 400
dpi.

How they differ from inkjet is that the pixel of dot is made up of an
overlay of colors (usually CMY and sometimes K (black) in usually 256
levels, making for up to 16.8 or so million colors. This makes the
color accuracy and gradients very smooth and potentially accurate.

Inkjet printers have "higher" resolutions, in that they can address up
to nearly 6000 dots per ink, however, they cannot be directly compared
to the dot create din a dye sub printer. In inkjet printers, the ink
dot can usually only be on exact color, that of the ink. That is why
inkjet printers have been adding more ink colors, densities and dot
sizes to create the illusion of more colors. Inkjet printers create
colors by dithering processes which alternate the dots of the actual ink
colors to give the appearance of many more colors, because the dots are
very small, our eye perceives them as a variety of colors. Without a
loupe, you probably wouldn't see the individual dots anyway.

Dye-sub printers are usually faster as a result of needing to lay down
less dots, but since each dot is so much larger, so in areas line
diagonal lines which have contrast to surrounding areas (as they often
do) there can be a problem with "jaggies". The inkjet printer uses
their ability to print very detailed dot placement to their advantage
here, with careful driver design the diagonal lines are printed in a
manner to lessen jaggies by filling in those steps by moving dots
around. A good driver on a dye-sub printer can lessen that as well, but
a poor driver will make it even more obvious on that type of printer.

I would agree with you that waiting for future releases may be
potentially dangerous, because it may never occur. In general, promises
of improvement with the "next" driver release should be considered with
some suspicion.

Art

 

[Arthur Entlich]

This raises a good point. What resolution source file was the original
poster using when he was noticing the jaggies? If the printer is forced
to upsample to create a higher res to produce the image, with dye sub
and mediocre drivers, that could easily lead to diagonal jaggies.

Art

Thanks for the response. The P-10 has a resolution of ~314 (depending
where one reads it or whom one speaks to at Olympus.) Interesting
idea about the cause for the "jaggies" I am seeing. It is definitely
the sharp diagonals that appear to suffer the most.

Scott

If it's over 300dpi, you should not see ANY jaggies -- unless your
original

image is very low resolution [like, 640 or 720 x 480].

As long as your starting image has a reasonably high resolution, use
something

like photoshop elements to resize to the desired final print size and
actual

printer resolution [dpi] before sending it off to the printer -- and tell
the

printer driver to not do any subsequent re-sizing on its own.

A 300dpi dye-sub should look as good as a wet process print from a decent
finisher.

I agree. I have an old P300 Olympus Dye-sub printer and it makes great 4X6
prints. It just depends on the resolution of what you're printing.

Ron

 

[Arthur Entlich]

Is there any way to create a file that is exactly the same resolution
(at output size) as the printer's resolution (317 dpi??), so that the
driver doesn't have to do any resampling?

Art

Thanks for the response. The P-10 has a resolution of ~314 (depending
where one reads it or whom one speaks to at Olympus.) Interesting
idea about the cause for the "jaggies" I am seeing. It is definitely
the sharp diagonals that appear to suffer the most.

Scott

If it's over 300dpi, you should not see ANY jaggies -- unless your
original

image is very low resolution [like, 640 or 720 x 480].

As long as your starting image has a reasonably high resolution, use
something

like photoshop elements to resize to the desired final print size and
actual

printer resolution [dpi] before sending it off to the printer -- and tell
the

printer driver to not do any subsequent re-sizing on its own.

A 300dpi dye-sub should look as good as a wet process print from a decent
finisher.

I agree. I have an old P300 Olympus Dye-sub printer and it makes great 4X6
prints. It just depends on the resolution of what you're printing.

Ron

Thanks for the responses.

The original are from a Canon G5 - most taken as Canon Raw (some as
jpg.) Original size is 2592 pixels x 1944 pixels, opened with either
PhotoShop CS raw converter or Canon File Viewer as at 300dpi (8.64" x
6.48"); resampled Bicubic to 6" x 4.5"; cropped to 6" x 4"; then sent
to the printer. (Sent directly to an Epson R800 printer the results
are flawless - to send the same photo to the P-10 and not have it sent
way off the edges, I have to use PhotoShop's "Print with Preview" and
then select "Scale to Fit Media", which reduces it to 78.97% (3.159" x
4.738")- which then gives about the same visible picture area as seen
on the R800. There is a slight difference in size of the paper - the
Epson is 4x6" - the Olympus is 100x148mm.

Any other ideas, anyone?

Scott

 

[Scott]

Thanks for the response. The P-10 has a resolution of ~314 (depending
where one reads it or whom one speaks to at Olympus.) Interesting
idea about the cause for the "jaggies" I am seeing. It is definitely
the sharp diagonals that appear to suffer the most.

Scott

If it's over 300dpi, you should not see ANY jaggies -- unless your
original
image is very low resolution [like, 640 or 720 x 480].

As long as your starting image has a reasonably high resolution, use
something
like photoshop elements to resize to the desired final print size and
actual
printer resolution [dpi] before sending it off to the printer -- and tell
the
printer driver to not do any subsequent re-sizing on its own.

A 300dpi dye-sub should look as good as a wet process print from a decent
finisher.



I agree. I have an old P300 Olympus Dye-sub printer and it makes great 4X6
prints. It just depends on the resolution of what you're printing.

Ron

Thanks for the responses.

The original are from a Canon G5 - most taken as Canon Raw (some as
jpg.) Original size is 2592 pixels x 1944 pixels, opened with either
PhotoShop CS raw converter or Canon File Viewer as at 300dpi (8.64" x
6.48"); resampled Bicubic to 6" x 4.5"; cropped to 6" x 4"; then sent
to the printer. (Sent directly to an Epson R800 printer the results
are flawless - to send the same photo to the P-10 and not have it sent
way off the edges, I have to use PhotoShop's "Print with Preview" and
then select "Scale to Fit Media", which reduces it to 78.97% (3.159" x
4.738")- which then gives about the same visible picture area as seen
on the R800. There is a slight difference in size of the paper - the
Epson is 4x6" - the Olympus is 100x148mm.

Any other ideas, anyone?

Scott

same idea as before -- scale with the tool, and don't post-scale -- either with
the printer driver or with 'scale to fit'.

Have tried every combination suggested or that I could think of -
still have "jaggies". It actually got worse (all straight lines -
horizontal, vertical, or diagonal had "jaggies") when I opened the RAW
at 300 dpi in PhotoShop CS, then used PhotoShop to size it to the
4.738"x3159" - and not by using the "Scale to Fit Media". Also tried
once to exactly match the dpi of the P-10 (tried the published and
tech support stated resolutions) - as well as trying to double the dpi
- all have jaggies".