FUJI Pictrography 4000 Digital Printer
- In conjunction with the groundbreaking Pictrography 4000 Digital Color Printer, Fujifilm is also announcing the release of its exclusive photo-oriented applications. -

PHOTOKINA '96 KÖLN, GERMANY, September 18, 1996 - Fuji Photo Film Co., Ltd. introduces the new Pictrography 4000, the enhanced model of the currently available Pictrography 3000. The Pictrography 3000 was the first photorealistic color digital printer based on Fujifilm's unique laser exposure and thermal development and dye transfer process (silver halide Pictro-Color Process). Since its release three years ago, it has garnered rave reviews for picture quality from users in a wide range of fields, including computer graphics, graphic design, industrial design, photography,scientific and technical research, to name but a few.

   The new Pictrography 4000 is a printer which succeeds the photorealistic color quality of the 3000, but the most remarkable feature of the 4000 is its ability to accept a full range of paper sizes. For the Pictrography 3000, the available paper sizes are up to A4 Wide, but the Pictrography 4000 offers not only the capacity to print on A3 Wide paper, but many other paper sizes as well, including standard photographic and office paper sizes such as 8x10, 10x12, A4, A5, and more. Additionally, the maximum exposure area is designed to be larger than the print area so as to allow image prints up to the full size of the paper. The Pictrography 4000 is also extremely fast: it can print an A3 Wide sheet at 400 dpi in about 90 seconds.
   Adobe Photoshop Plug-in for Macintosh or WindowsÆ is bundled with the Pictrography 4000 so users can promptly print images created by popular rendering applications with ease.
   An increase in a wide variety of uses for photographic fields as well as printing industries can be expected to appear around the release of the new Pictrography 4000.


    Fujifilm's new Pictro-oriented software, announced together with the Pictrography 4000's release, includes an optional scanning printing software called "PPM (Pictro Photo Manager)". The PPM is available for both the 3000 and the 4000, and it has the following unique characteristics:

   Fujifilm is planning to provide PPM support for as many scanners as possible in the future. In addition to the above, Fujifilm announces that other options such as PostScript RIP, Networking Interface and so on, will be available in the near future.


What is the Pictro-Color Process ?
   The Pictrography's laser exposure and thermal development and dye transfer process is a silver halide photographic process, which takes much of the complexity out of photograph printing as it uses no chemicals at all, just water. As a result not only will your hands not be stained if you touch the prints, but the Pictrography can be called a "green" product, an extremely environmentally friendly digital color printer.
   Additionally, by incorporating a 3-color level laser diode for one-pass exposure and simultaneous one-pass dye transfer, Pictrography can avoid the color shift and diffusion problems of 3-pass and 4-pass dye-sublimation printers and realize prints of superior sharpness and clarity.