Is laser a non-starter for photo printing?

[Stuarte]

In 1986 I urgently need to find a faster alternative to my nine-pin dot matrix printer for document printing.  I splashed out a load of money (about GBP 1600) on an Epson GQ3500, which lasted me well for another decade or so.  I thought that laser technology was just the best for sharpness, stability and speed.

But now it seems that inkjet has pretty much sidelined laser except for very high-volume office document printing.  And I don't see any laser options for photography.

So what happened to laser?

[dilip]

In 1986 I urgently need to find a faster alternative to my nine-pin dot matrix printer for document printing.  I splashed out a load of money (about GBP 1600) on an Epson GQ3500, which lasted me well for another decade or so.  I thought that laser technology was just the best for sharpness, stability and speed.

But now it seems that inkjet has pretty much sidelined laser except for very high-volume office document printing.  And I don't see any laser options for photography.

So what happened to laser?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=172216\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Colour printing requires more toner cartidges (and possibly more fusers depending on the design). Getting alignment on a multi-pass print is difficult, and the number of toners that can be added is limited by the size of the machine.  You'll notice that mono laser printers have gotten smaller, but colour lasers are still relatively large.

Additionally, inkjet printers can handle different types of media that may not like the high temperatures of a laser printer, and can handle different sizes.  Building a fuser 17inches wide (or wider) really starts to add to the costs, and results in a truly monsterous device that won't find a home as easily as a wide format ink-jet.

Fine art printing (at least for now) has remained the preserve of ink-jet printers.

[Geoff Wittig]

They serve different markets. Laser printers are lightning fast, cheap per page, and provide extremely high quality text printing. Their output is also water resistant compared to consumer-grade inkjets. However, screening/dithering algorithms for laser printers are positively crude compared to modern photo inkjets, with resolution that can't begin to compete.

The one place where color laser printing has an edge is for high-volume "good enough" printing of booklets, calendars or brochures. The per-page cost is cheaper, but quality is not in the same league with a good inkjet. You can make an argument for a color laser printer if you're doing mock-ups of a printed book for example. It's just not that good for final output.