Contone Printer

A type of printer that uses a combination of dithering and printing at different levels of intensity to produce different colors and different shades of lightness and darkness. Unlike a true continuous-tone printer, contone printers can lay down at ink at only a few different levels of intensity (usually 8). To produce the full range of colors that can be perceived by the human eye, they must also use dithering techniques. Many of the newer color laser printers are contone printers.