Drupa Tour Covers Digital, Color & Proofing
- Published: April 10, 2008, By By Claudia Hine, Managing Editor
GENT, BELGIUM (March 19, 2008) | Day Three of Duomedia’s Drupa Discovery Tour began with a presentation by Oliver C. Mehler, CEO of Atlantic Zeiser, Emmingen, Germany. The company’s core business is personalized, digital inkjet printing and coding solutions for challenging substrates that include bank notes, checks, passports, and ID cards. Mehler reported the soaring gift card business, especially in the US, is a new business opportunity for printers; he claimed it can offer a return on investment in just six months.
Atlantic Zeiser will introduce two high-resolution inkjet printers at Drupa: the Omega 36 HD and the enhanced Omega 210. These compact printers can be installed for web or sheet-fed applications. The Omega 36 HD offers a resolution of 720 dpi and is said to offer crisp printing of extremely small characters and to produce barcodes with excellent readability. The enhanced Omega 210 increases print width to 210 mm with black and spot colors. The Omega range prints on a variety of substrates, including paper and carton, as well as specialized materials such as aluminum, polymer foils, and plastics.
The SmartCure series is the company’s second generation of LED UV curing technology. It’s eco-friendly due to low energy consumption compared to lamp-based systems, a ten-times longer lifetime, no ozone generation, and lower cooling requirements. Compact size allows for easy integration, and it comes equipped with an instant on/off functionality that eliminates energy consumption during machine stops.
Also being shown are the company’s latest developments in its range of fast-curing and security, as well as spot and process color inks.
Atlantic Zeiser can be found in hall 11 on stand C56.
HP’s Big Digital Push
Next up was Francois Martin, EMEA graphic arts marketing director at HP, Tel Aviv, Israel, who said the company wants to accelerate the transformation from analog to digital printing. To that end, HP will provide an extensive rollout of products at Drupa.
The HP 7000 digital press is designed for high-volume print service providers and reportedly delivers production speeds of 120 four-color A4 (letter size) pages/min with offset and photo quality. Said to offer a low total cost of ownership for customers exceeding the 1 million-page level, significantly increasing the breakeven point against offset.
The HP Indigo W7200 digital press is designed for even higher production, including high-volume, personalized, color direct-mail campaigns. It features a roll-fed liquid electrophotographic printing (LEP) dual-engine solution that can produce up to 7 million A4 color images/month.
For label and package converters, the WS6000 prints seven colors and includes a new improved white. At four-color speed, the press prints at 98 fpm (30 mpm) on a broad range of media from 12–450 microns, including thinner flexible packaging substrates and folding carton, as well as label and shrink sleeve media. The repeat length of 38.58 in. (980 mm) permits higher productivity and less waste.
The company’s first-ever workflow portfolio, HP SmartStream, provides end-to-end workflow management from job creation to fulfillment. It was designed to have an open environment to allow customers the choice to expand into additional market segments, including commercial printing, publication printing, labels, and packaging. The new presses will be the first hardware devices to employ the HP SmartStream Digital Workflow Portfolio.
The HP Inkjet Web Press, a high-speed color digital press, arrays printheads across a 30-in. paper path and outputs either to a rewind unit or finishing devices. It is designed to perform in high volume, 24/7 environments such as direct mail, transactional and transpromotional printing, and book and newspaper publishing. Run speed is 400 fpm (122 mpm).
Designed for direct-to-disk CD/DVD printing, the HP Scanning Imager 1000 features high-quality process color printing at speeds to three disks/min. It uses thermal inkjet technology to deliver vibrant image quality, the company reported.
In the area of large-format signage, HP Latex Printing Technologies uses new water-based HP latex inks to produce high quality, dry, odorless prints. Latex is used as a descriptive term for aqueous-dispersed polymers, chemically different than natural rubber latex and non-allergenic. Durable output is said to achieve display permanence up to three years. Produces outdoor-quality prints at about 800 sq ft/hr and indoor-quality prints at about 400 sq ft/hr.
Under a tagline of "Progressive, Profitable Printing," HP can be found in Hall 8a. The company will occupy the largest booth displaying digital products and the third largest booth overall.
Managing Color
Elie Khoury, president of Alwan Color Expertise, Brussels, said the company is a strong advocate of standardized color management solutions. As an ICC member, the company will continue to develop ICC profile-based solutions for the graphic arts.
At Drupa, Alwan will launch Version v2.0, an Adobe Photoshop plug-in that enables users to apply ICC DeviceLink Profiles within Photoshop for print-oriented workflows. It enables non-color experts to benefit from advance features such as the calculation of individual inks and the total ink consumption to print an image.
The Alwan Color Processor, says the company, is a powerful, cost-effective color management solution. It’s based on open ICC standards and comes with a predefined set of Device and DeviceLink profiles.
Demonstrations of CMYK Optimizer 3.5 software will highlight an improved user-friendly interface and technical strengths such as preflight features, problem-free printing, and dynamic analysis and calculation of optimal total area coverage of ink. The product line includes Photo, aimed at photographers and small agencies; Prepress, reportedly the first pre-flight standardization and optimization software for color separation files; Press, suited for small- to medium-size printers; and ECO, for large offset and gravure printers, that comes equipped with Dynamic Black generation said to deliver substantial ink, paper, and energy waste savings.
Alwan will be located in hall 7/7.0 C.
Renewed Commitment to Crossroads
As announced at the EskoArtwork press conference on Day One of the Drupa Discovery Tour, Peter Camps, chairman/CEO of Gradual Software, Gent, returns to Esko as Sr. VP of Enfocus, following Esko’s acquisition of Gradual. Also back with Enfocus is Gradual’s COO David van Driessche.
At just his fourth day on the job, Camps made no specific Drupa announcements. Instead he discussed the technological areas the company is working to improve such as third-party system interface, document formats, metadata, and quality assurance.
Camps and van Driessche said Enfocus is 100% committed to Crossroads, which was launched by Gradual in August 2007. Centered on SWITCH automation technology. Crossroads is a communication platform that draws together a large system of software vendors offering automation products for publishing workflows.
The objective is to present users with solid information on solutions that combine products from various vendors. Crossroads offers a website, user forum, and seminars, and will be present at selected trade shows and industry events.
Learn more in hall 7/7.0C.
Proofing and Prototypes,
Mark Verbist, managing director of PerfectProof, Mechelen, Belgium, reported the company will demonstrate proofing, large format production, and packaging prototypes at Drupa.
A turnkey proofing solution, ProofMaster Certify software comes pre-packaged with tailor-made profiles for the different production processes, allowing users to produce guaranteed ISO-certified digital proofs. Enables printers, publishers, and graphic designers to create certified proofs without the hassle of setup and profiling.
Print Factory builds on ProofMaster’s modular architecture and provides the specific tools needed in the different parts of the workflow. It allows users to set up advanced manual and automated tiling, generate eyelet markers, and add seam lines, as well as generate die-cut lines. Also, it permits users to drive different machines from the same platform.
PakReady is reported to be an extremely efficient and affordable solution for the creation of carton-based prototypes on the final packaging material, using actual carton board or corrugated carton. It reduces the time to create a prototype to a couple of minutes, allowing for more extensive testing with customer focus groups and an optimized time-to-market.
PerfectProof’s ProofMaster Certify and PrintFactory can be found in hall 7, booth 7.0C while Pakready can be seen in hall 7, booth 7.0E.
Beyond Brussels
Our Discovery Tour bus next took us to visit Canon Europe. David Preskett, European marketing director, welcomed our tour at the company’s new 600-sq-m showroom. The Professional Print Demonstration Ctr., located outside Brussels in Diegem, opened in January.
Under the theme of "We Speak Image," Canon will show its newest additions to the digital color production range: the imagePRESS C6000 and imagePRESS C6000VP. The C6000 offers resolutions of 1,200 dpi with 256 graduations at 60 impressions/min on paper stocks to 135 gsm with the ability to print on a variety of stocks to 300 gsm. The C6000VP production press delivers the same print quality with a constant rated speed of 60 color impressions/min onto paper stocks up to 300 gsm. Both press engines are available with several server options and include such imagePRESS technologies as V-Toner, T-Developer, and E-Drum.
It’s not all about color, however. Also announced is a new range of imagePRESS monochrome engines that are designed for the commercial print, CRD, transactional, and print-for-pay sectors. They will run at 135 A4 pages/min and will feature finishing and output options including booklet trimmer, paper folder, saddle stitcher, high-capacity stacker, professional puncher, and document inserter.
Canon will release version 2.0 of the X-Rite-developed i1 Process Control System. It features an enhanced graphical user interface and an interactive profiling function.
Helix Production Workflow, a new software suite for print management and production, will provide an extended feature set and enhanced graphical user interface. The software is designed to help print providers automate and streamline the production process.
For the large, corporate CAD and GIS (geographical information systems) businesses, Canon is launching the imagePROGRAF 720. The large-format printer is equipped with an 80GB hard drive.
For the light production market, the imagePRESS C1 is reported to be the first-ever color device with clear toner to enhance the final print product. A new strategic alliance with Agfa Graphics means Canon’s imagePRESS digital presses will be capable of full integration with Agfa’s Apogee Suite JDF workflow solution.
See Canon at Hall 8a, stand B46.
