Friday, October 11, 2013
Konica Minolta MagiColor 2430dl
I have used the Konica Minolta MagiColor 2430dl since I bought it new in 2005. It hasn’t let me down since then, and is still going strong for when I need a longer document.
I print a lot of photographs, so was quite hesitant about using a laser. They have never been able to print in as much detail as I needed, but the 2430dl surprised me when I saw it in action. Mono documents are excellent. Blacks are really black, edges are crisp and straight and mono images use the grayscale very accurately.
There is an element of dithering on color photographs but not enough to stop me using it. The ability to print a large document with a couple of photos in it without it costing me the earth is why I like the printer, and still use it today.
For a full color printer, the MagiColor 2430dl is quite small. It’s about the size of a normal personal printer, but can handle so much more. It comes with starter toners, which are only a third full, which is about standard for the industry, but they are easily changed by lifting the top and removing the drum. The whole procedure can be done in a couple of minutes and you’re back in action again.
The only negative thing I would say about this printer is that the paper tray is quite small. If you print larger, or longer documents as I do, the 200 sheet paper tray can empty quite quickly. You have to be ready to add more, especially if printing a manuscript or something.
As an added bonus there is a PictBridge port on the front of the MagiColor 2430dl. This means you can connect a digital camera directly to it and print. I don’t use it, and I doubt many people will, but it’s a nice addition even if you have to upgrade the memory to be able to do it.
The print speed is the main reason I went laser. It manages around 18 pages per minute for monochrome, and 5 for color. While it won’t break any speed records, it’s excellent for the price. This cost little more than a decent inkjet when it was new, so the performance you get for the money is excellent.
Overall the MagiColor 2430dl is a great little printer. It does everything you need it to do and doesn’t clamor for attention all the time. The only time I pay it any mind is refilling that paper tray or when it needs new cartridges. It’s all I ask of a printer to be honest.
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I print a lot of photographs, so was quite hesitant about using a laser. They have never been able to print in as much detail as I needed, but the 2430dl surprised me when I saw it in action. Mono documents are excellent. Blacks are really black, edges are crisp and straight and mono images use the grayscale very accurately.
There is an element of dithering on color photographs but not enough to stop me using it. The ability to print a large document with a couple of photos in it without it costing me the earth is why I like the printer, and still use it today.
For a full color printer, the MagiColor 2430dl is quite small. It’s about the size of a normal personal printer, but can handle so much more. It comes with starter toners, which are only a third full, which is about standard for the industry, but they are easily changed by lifting the top and removing the drum. The whole procedure can be done in a couple of minutes and you’re back in action again.
The only negative thing I would say about this printer is that the paper tray is quite small. If you print larger, or longer documents as I do, the 200 sheet paper tray can empty quite quickly. You have to be ready to add more, especially if printing a manuscript or something.
As an added bonus there is a PictBridge port on the front of the MagiColor 2430dl. This means you can connect a digital camera directly to it and print. I don’t use it, and I doubt many people will, but it’s a nice addition even if you have to upgrade the memory to be able to do it.
The print speed is the main reason I went laser. It manages around 18 pages per minute for monochrome, and 5 for color. While it won’t break any speed records, it’s excellent for the price. This cost little more than a decent inkjet when it was new, so the performance you get for the money is excellent.
Overall the MagiColor 2430dl is a great little printer. It does everything you need it to do and doesn’t clamor for attention all the time. The only time I pay it any mind is refilling that paper tray or when it needs new cartridges. It’s all I ask of a printer to be honest.
Open Prepress Interface
A workflow protocol developed by Aldus Corporation used in electronic prepress to link desktop publishing systems and high-end CEPS. Essentially, high-resolution color images are stored on a central network server, to which all the workstations are connected. Low-resolution files are sent by the server to individual computers working on page layout. The low-res images are imported into the page (in a kind of FPO way), positioned, and comments sent back to the OPI server provide specific cropping, scaling, positioning, and color information about the image. The servers PostScript driver inserts the proper instructions into the PostScript code. When the page is ultimately output to an imagesetter connected to the network, the high-resolution image is swapped for the low-res one, and the indicated instructions as to cropping, etc., are executed. The work with layout documents which include big graphic files (high resolution, big size) may become a test for someone’s patience due to the rate of the processing. The dealing with this kind of files, which need a lot of memory in the workflow, can be simplified with an Open Prepress Interface (OPI) System. Although the PCs and networks become constantly faster and powerful, OPI is used for the Prepress workflow in order to minimize the waiting period. It is in use for 10 years now, but only a few people know this application. If a graphic file is placed into a document, layout applications normally integrate the whole graphic file. If the graphic files are big, the processing of the document becomes very slow due to the quantity of the graphic data. The resources needed by the PC and the network (if used) are unnecessary, because low resolution graphic files are sufficient for the work on a monitor in order to create the layout or to judge the colours. Because of this, OPI-programs create low-resolution graphic files with the same dimensions and place them into the layout document instead of the originals. The high-resolution files are integrated by an OPI-server just after the print job is started. The OPI-server finds the data by so called OPI-comments, which are included in the PostScript print file or in a PDF file. These OPI-comments describe, among other things, the memory needed, the sizes, and the position of the graphics in the layout document. Another aspect is the possibility to share the work of one project between the graphics and the layout, because the final graphics are embedded after the print job is started.
OPI is useful for minimizing high-resolution-file travel on networks; their large file size can make traffic screech to a halt. And by utilizing only low-resolution viewfiles on workstations, processing speed is increased. The efficacy of OPI is contingent upon the use on the workstations of OPI-compatible software; many page layout programs are increasingly including support for OPI, although some OPI specifications for color separation havent been effectively nailed down yet. Although OPI is often compared to DCS, the latter is strictly a color separation protocol, while the former is more of a workflow protocol.
OPI is useful for minimizing high-resolution-file travel on networks; their large file size can make traffic screech to a halt. And by utilizing only low-resolution viewfiles on workstations, processing speed is increased. The efficacy of OPI is contingent upon the use on the workstations of OPI-compatible software; many page layout programs are increasingly including support for OPI, although some OPI specifications for color separation havent been effectively nailed down yet. Although OPI is often compared to DCS, the latter is strictly a color separation protocol, while the former is more of a workflow protocol.
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