Dye-Sublimation Printer
Definition
A printer that transfers dye from a donor ribbon to a receiver layer under heat, producing continuous-tone gradients; used for ID card and passport photo printing; dye diffusion profiles and ribbon residue are examination targets.
- Mechanism
- Heat-transferred dye from donor ribbon
- Output
- Continuous-tone gradient images
- Common use
- ID card and passport photo printing
- Examination targets
- Dye diffusion profiles, ribbon residue
Common questions
Why are dye diffusion profiles useful in forgery examination of ID cards?+
Genuine dye-sublimation output shows a characteristic smooth heat-diffusion gradient at colour boundaries, while a counterfeit produced on a different printer type, such as inkjet, typically shows discrete droplet patterns instead, making the diffusion profile a reliable way to distinguish print methods.
How can donor ribbon residue help link a printed card to a specific printer?+
Used ribbons retain a negative image of everything printed through them in sequence, so recovering a suspect's ribbon can reveal prior print jobs, including other cards or documents produced on the same device, which is valuable for building a print-history timeline.
Related terms
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- Fourier Banding Analysis
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