Digital Color - Cleared For Take-off

Digital color printing has improved tremendously in recent years. It's time for in-plants to focus on the benefits it can offer them.

DON'T LOOK now, but digital color printing is poised to become the darling of the in-plant world.

Faster, cheaper and more reliable than ever—and boasting improved print quality—digital color printing is finally living up to the hype it once received.

Despite all the hoopla, however, one of the biggest strikes against it, marketing reps will tell you, has long been lack of awareness in the marketplace.

And then along came Heidelberg.

Ever since Drupa, where the offset king announced that its partnership with Kodak had yielded the 70-page-per-minute (ppm) NexPress 2100 digital color printer, the buzz has been building about digital color printing. Even NexPress' competitors concede the importance of Heidelberg's entry into the digital color printing arena.

"When a company like Heidelberg steps into the market, it gives verification that digital printing is definitely the future direction of printing," declares Bob Barbera, vice president of Xeikon's commercial print unit.

Barbera's not the only one who feels digital color printing will be a major force in the 21st century. The National Association for Printing Leadership (NAPL) released a study at Print Outlook 01 that revealed digital printing is the service printing executives feel will be most in demand over the next two years.

Furthermore, Heidelberg predicts by 2008 the market for digital color printing will grow from $4.2 billion currently to more than $46 billion.

Now, as the second wave of digital color printers reaches the marketplace, low-cost, variable data, print on-demand color is available from a number of vendors at a fraction of the old price.

What's more, because in-plants traditionally hold close relationships with their in-house marketing and sales departments, they are uniquely disposed to take advantage of all the benefits variable data color printing has to offer.

Problems In The Past

In theory, digital color printing sounds great. Fast, cheap, on-demand color that can be manipulated to deliver personalized information. Who wouldn't want that? But the truth is, early adopters often found it to be lacking.

Overall, print quality tended to have a waxy look; large solid areas often ended up corrupted by banding; jobs couldn't be interrupted to pull a proof; and loading image memory seemed to take forever.

Needless to say, whatever buzz did make its way around wasn't all that favorable. Nonetheless, given the chance to eliminate some of its problems, digital color printing may yet revolutionize the graphic arts industry.

Hyperbole aside, Linda Becker, vice president of world wide color at Xerox, identifies three major trends driving changes in the graphic arts industry, all of which play to the strengths of digital color printing:

• Print on-demand

• Personalized documents

• Distribute and print capabilities

However, Becker is quick to note these trends aren't the death knell of offset printing, just the dawn of a new era.

"What we really see is that there is a requirement for different technologies," explains Becker. "People are asking, 'Once you launch digital, does that mean there is no need for traditional offset presses,' and that's not really the case. There's a market for both, and digital is very complimentary to offset."

Merrill Clark, director of marketing at Indigo, agrees. He likens this time to the introduction of the scanner a few years back.

"When the scanner first came out, a lot of people in the market were very skeptical, but when the market adopted it, [now] everybody's got a scanner," notes Clark. "I think the same paradigm shift has happened with digital printing."

Up, Up, And Away

Heidelberg is banking on its reputation to dissipate some of that skepticism when its NexPress subsidiary releases the NexPress 2100 in the middle of this year. Printing 70 single-sided ppm, or 35 perfected ppm, the sheetfed, CMYK-based NexPress 2100 features a double sheet control sensor and paper conditioner to ensure consistent color quality and perfect register. Its DryInk process allows printed pieces to be ready for use "hot off the press."

Engineered to eliminate costly downtime, the Operator Replaceable Components (ORC) system lets printers replace most components without tools or vendor service.

"We see our product as producing far superior uptime and approaching 90 percent availability," asserts Chris Payne, chief marketing officer at NexPress. "We achieved that by the unique technology that enables the customer to replace most of the components inside the press."

In addition to the ORC system, the NexPress is driven by Adobe Extreme technology, making the 2100 a workhorse for workflow and a cinch to keep running for maximum uptime.

Dashing criticism digital color printers received in the past because of substrate limitations, the NexPress 2100 can handle coated, uncoated and textured paper, plus foils and transparencies. It can also collate and intermix up to three different papers in one printed piece into a ready-to-bind product.

We Know Digital Printing

Not everyone is excited about the NexPress 2100, and least of all Xerox. The Document Company feels its competitors have a long way to go.

"They don't know how to do digital," criticizes Becker. "We've been doing digital DocuTechs for 11 years, and it's not as easy as it looks. All the kinds of things that it's taken us 10 years to learn and now we are expert at, they're just learning."

Xerox has introduced the DocuColor 2000 Series to compete head-to-head with the NexPress. The 45-ppm 2045 and 60-ppm 2060 offer operating costs of 10¢ per page. Both use the Xerox digital blanket technology, which transfers images from the units' four photoreceptors to the printed page, similar to an offset printing blanket. Registration errors are reduced thanks to an alignment roller and sensors that center the page to the image.

Both the 2045 and the 2060 have 600x600 pixel per inch resolution. An automated color calibration and process control system called I-TRACS recalibrates image quality throughout the system. The DocuColor 2060 can produce up to 3,600 sheets per hour, with a recommended average monthly volume of 100,000 (8-1⁄2x11˝) pages. Available now, the 2045 and 2060 round out the DocuColor 2000 Series.

Not to be outdone, Indigo unveiled a number of digital color printers at Drupa. Among them were the UltraStream 2000, currently available, and the UltraStream 4000 and Publisher 4000, both to be available in the first half of 2001. They offer in-plants increased flexibility by way of extra colors and increased speed.

Through its ElectroInk system—a liquid ink that can be electrostatically charged—Indigo provides high-resolution, high-quality color beyond the range of standard CMYK-based printing.

"Because we're not toner or xerographic based we have the ability to have different colors," explains Clark. "We have the ability to have a fifth, sixth or a seventh color."

IndiChrome OffPress mixed inks can print a range of spot colors, plus opaque white. IndiChrome OnPress inks use violet and orange ElectroInks in addition to CMYK process colors, creating a broadened color gamut.

Working at a process speed of 240 feet per minute and imaging at 800 dots per inch (dpi), the sheetfed UltraStream 2000 delivers 4,000 four-color, 8-1⁄2x11˝, single-sided, two-up pages per hour (pph). Both the UltraStream 4000 and the Publisher 4000 output 4,000 pph of four-color, 8-1⁄2x11˝, single-sided, two-up work. The UltraStream series and the Publisher 4000 reportedly accept a virtually limitless array of substrates.

Of course, Indigo still offers its entry-level e-Print Pro+ four-color digital press, printing 2,000 full color pages per hour. In-plants can also get this product under the A.B.Dick Colour label.

Web Solutions

While Indigo, Xerox and others have made their fortunes pushing sheetfed printers, Xeikon has long had success selling web-fed devices.

At Drupa, the Belgian company continued this tradition by introducing the DCP 320 D and the DCP 500 D, built on the platform of the DCP/32D and DCP/50D. Both offer increased production speeds: from 70 to 130 ppm for the DCP 320 D and from 100 ppm to 130 ppm for the DCP500 D. The result is 3,900 duplex-printed color 81⁄2x11˝ sheets per hour.

Both incorporate Xeikon's One-Pass Duplex electro photographic technology. New features include a pneumatic paper axle that simplifies reel loading and improves the running of very smooth papers, and an electromagnetic brake for precise control of web tension. New Version 3 toner/developer technology enhances quality and extends developer life.

Xeikon has also moved into the sheetfed world with its CSP 320 D model. The CMYK-based device outputs 960 full color, double-sided 81⁄2x11˝ pph at 600x600 dpi and accepts media up to 11x17˝.

"The unique capability that we have with the duplex devices, especially for in-plants, is for collateral material and documents, because they print four-color, two sides in one pass," explains Xeikon's Bob Barbera.

Recently, Xeikon America signed a reseller contract enabling Océ Printing Systems USA to directly market Xeikon-branded digital color presses with IntelliStream digital front ends. Océ will offer its customers a single point of contact for sales, installation, support and service for Xeikon systems.

Xeikon has long contributed to digital color printing technology by "lending" its engine to other vendors. One of them, IBM, used the Xeikon 500D engine in two new printers, the Infoprint Color Plus and Color 130, both offering 138 color impressions per minute. The 130 is an entry system for users just starting into variable printing. It can be upgraded to the Color Plus, which has an Advanced Function Common Control Unit to enable object caching and page parallel processing. Page level error recovery restarts a job exactly on the page where it stopped.

Variable Color Ink-jet Printing

One of the biggest advantages of digital printing over offset is its ability to use variable data to tailor each sheet to a different audience. Adding color to this variable data enhances it further. With its VersaMark Business Color Press (BCP), Scitex Digital Printing has used ink-jet technology to provide high-speed, CMYK color, variable data printing. Geared toward direct mail, statement, coupon and catalog production, the VersaMark BCP outputs up to 2,000 pages per minute, at under 2¢ per page.

"Continuous ink-jet has real, inherent advantages over the laser technology in the cost of consumables and higher speeds," contends Jason Oliver, director of page printing products. "The value proposition is: color at the cost of black-and-white production. The unit is targeted at the transactional document marketplace, both in-plants and service bureaus, simply because it can produce three times the volume and more of the competition."

The web-fed VersaMark images at a resolution depth of 300x300 dpi and comes with workflow features such as QuarkXpress composition, QuarkXTension variable image placement, on-screen and hard copy proofing and real-time assembly of selectable pre-RIPed images and variable text.

Sidebar: HP Enters The Ring

Ever since Hewlett-Packard's recent agreement to make a $100 million equity investment in Indigo and OEM the company's digital color printing products, the two companies have been hard at work developing a new, high-end, digital color printing system.

What will this system do? When will it arrive? So far HP is keeping mum. The company did confirm to IPG, however, that a product will be ready for release by the second half of 2001.

"What we're looking to do is extend our strength in the corporate marketplace into the high-end digital printing arena," explains Ken Cloud, marketing manager for HP's commercial printing initiative. "Our partnership with Indigo allows us to move into a higher quality space and get into the high-value production arena."

by Allan Martin Kemler