A three dimensional printing system for producing a three dimensional article of manufacture includes a build platform, a powder dispensing apparatus, a light emitting device head, a drop ejecting head, a movement mechanism, and a controller. The light emitting device head may be a vertical cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) head that has a columnar arrangement of VCSELs that emit light having a defined spectral distribution. The drop ejecting head is configured to separately eject a plurality of different inks having correspondingly different absorption coefficients for the defined spectral distribution. The controller operates the powder dispensing apparatus to dispense powder, move and operate the drop ejecting head to define an array of inked pixels, and move and operate the VCSEL head to fuse the inked pixels. The controller varies an energy output of the VCSELs in correspondence with a variation of an absorption coefficient of the inked pixels.