Light-Jet

What is a Lightjet print?

"A lightjet is not photo quality, it is a true photograph on actual photographic paper"

There are some things that even a 1200 or 1400 dpi inkjet printer cannot do. They can simulate or come close to continuous tone, but there are special wide format printers that achieve continuous tone naturally. The LightJet printer from Cymbolic Sciences is one of several such printers. It exposes photographic paper with laser light. There is no ink, and no printhead going back and forth, hence no banding, no grainy dot pattern.

A Lightjet photograph is an actual photographic print exposed by the Lightjet 430 laser printer. The printer reads the information in a digital file, then uses lasers to expose the image onto Fuji Crystal Archive paper. This paper has been tested to be more archival than other popular color printing methods (lasting over 60 years without noticeable fading in controlled conditions), including Ilfochrome printing. Unlike inkjet prints, which lay ink on paper, Lightjet prints are made on light-sensitive photo paper, which is exposed with red, green and blue lasers.

LightJet printers set the standard for true photographic quality. An internal drum holds photo media stationary while imaging with three lasers, achieving image quality superior to all wide format printers - photographic, inkjet and electrostatic.

LightJet's imaging technology ensures a constant pixel size, shape and intensity over the entire image. Media is held stationary within a precision internal drum, while a spinning mirror directs laser light to expose the photographic material.

Using red, green and blue lasers, the LightJet achieves true continuous-tone. Inkjet and electrostatic printers, which simulate photo quality with half-tone dot patterns, would need to image at 4000 dpi to duplicate the same image crispness, highlights and shadow detail.

The LightJet has a 36-bit color space, capable of producing 68 billion colors, which ensures optimum control over the light source to reproduce color with perfect fidelity. In comparison, other photo printers are limited to 24 bits or 16.7 million colors.