Since the first black-and-white laser printers in 1969, laser (or digital) printing has improved substantially. The resolution (or detail) can exceed 1200 dots per inch in vivid CMYK color. Dots are so tiny, photographs may appear to be continuous tone, though not a rich as inkjet.
Because of using CMYK dry toner as ink, files destine for color laser printing are essentially prepared the same as those for offset printing. The difference is that Pantone or other spot colors are automatically converted to CMYK. For traditional offset printing on presses with ink, Pantone colors must be converted to CMYK within software or specified as additional colors that increase printing cost. Hence, digital color laser printing is more forgiving.
Capable of rapidly producing hundreds of copies, laser printing fills the gap between inkjet (for dozens of copies) and offset printing (for thousands of copies). The fastest color laser printers can print over 100 letter size pages per minute. It is more common, however for a good quality printer to output 20 to 30 pages per minute. Speed depends as much upon complexity of graphics or size and thickness of paper as internal processor capacity.
Professional graphics applications can produce resolution independent vector artwork. Printers must include a PostScript interpreter to process such images. Postscript laser printers are generally more expensive than non-PostScript models.