I was doing research on how to make my own grill badges. 

 

I need something that prints waterproof colors and is UV resistant.   I thought the only printers readily available to the general consumer was Kodaks new Inkjet printers and Epson's (the one I have) that use pigmented inks.   Problem with them is they only print on full size paper and use a lot of ink.  aka expensive.  Plus they print in dot or pixel mode, which means reduced resolution. 

 

So I did some research and learned about dye sublimation printing.   Dye sublimation printing is the technology used in thermal heat transfer photo printers.   These type of printers work better than inkjets because they don't print dots.   They actually coat the paper with the base primary colours in appropriate quantity to mix the colours hence the resolution of the picture is much greater than dot matrix or pixel printing.  I also learned that since the colour is fused into the paper, the colors themselves are waterproof and UV resistant.   Most photopaper sold for these printers are also coated to be waterproof so the print produced is waterproof making it suitable for sticking a magnet on the back and making it an effective grill badge for the MINI grill badge holder.

 

and I had one of these printers hooked up to my Mac all along...