September 1997 — Ed-Tech Trends

Print this article | Email this article

Click here to receive your FREE subscription to T.H.E. Journal

Digital Imaging Is Innovative, Useful and Now Within Educators' Reach

At this price point, the Lexmark 1000 may even be an alternative for those expensive laser printers utilized in many computer labs. With its high resolution, it probably outperforms many of those old models, while offering color capability. It prints up to 1.5 ppm in color and 3.5 ppm in black; unlike the 7000 model, you do need to swap cartridges. However, ColorSort technology automatically sorts color and black-only pages so cartridge swapping is kept to a minimum.

Hands-On: Lexmark 7000 Color Jetprinter

Lexmarkís 7000 color inkjet printer actually represents a mid-range offering. At $399, itís not their cheapest color printer (for that, see the Lexmark 1000 in this article), but it offers phenomenal print quality and ease of use for the money. Printing at 1200 x 1200 dpi is better than many laser printers, and makes for astounding color-based projects. Plan on having lots of RAM, though; loading a color image at 1200 dpi takes a lot of system resources. A 3 page per minute (ppm) color printing speed makes printing transparencies, photos, labels and various paper sizes a breeze. Setting up the 7000 was painless ó install two floppy disks and itís over. When a print job is started, a printer control panel opens up, offering a plethora of options letting you fine tune color output, resolution, and more. This Windows PC-based printer ships with both a color and black print cartridge that are used simultaneously ó meaning no inconvenient cartridge swapping. LivePix photo software is included, as is Lexmarkís 1 Year Express Warranty, which guarantees Lexmark (800-LEXMARK) will send out an exchange printer by the next business day.

The Software

One of the enticing benefits of digital imaging is the ability to control the image enhancement process. Software that handles image editing ranges from simple "one-click" programs to packages that can accomplish virtually anything, from professional-quality enhancement to spectacular special effects.

Carrying over its "instant imaging" theme, Polaroidís (800-533-9680) Before & After improves digital pictures, making them sharper, brighter, clearer and better balanced. With a single mouse click, JPEG, TIFF and BMP files can all be improved without spending a lot of time on separate processes for each enhancement. For $30, Before & After (Windows 95) may be worth looking at for those who need instant image enhancement.

Microsoftís (800-426-9400) Picture It! utilizes an Image Graph architecture, which retains an imageís photographic quality even after effects and enhancements have been applied.