Upgrading Digital Color

Digital color printing is on the rise at in-plants. To help, equipment vendors are making their devices more user-friendly than ever.

By Vince De Franco

When it comes to digital color printing, in-plants are among the leaders. Some 30 percent of color devices in the 24- to 59-ppm category reside at in-plants, according to an InfoTrends/CAP Ventures research study. Not only that, 20 percent of all production color devices in excess of 60 ppm are at in-plants.

This has made suppliers of digital color printing equipment take note. They have responded by making this equipment more user-friendly than ever. Vendors have broadened the choice of runnable substrates, added inline finishing options, expanded the color gamut and much more.

Still, some users hesitate to invest in high-end digital color equipment due to concerns over obsolescence. Recognizing this, Xerox has implemented a quarterly upgrade mandate on its iGen3 digital press to ensure no iGen3 customer gets left with an outdated machine.

The iGen3 is Xerox's answer to demand for a high-end digital color press with variable data and economic short-run color capabilities. Every quarter, the company offers hardware and software releases to customers, thus upgrading the entire population of iGen3 machines.

"The older installations are equivalent in functionality to those sold last week," notes Fred Debolt, vice president of color product systems at the Xerox Production Systems Group. Although Debolt admits that the early rounds of upgrades had more to do with problem fixes and debugging, recent releases focus more on new content, features and functionality, some of which represent drastic changes to the equipment.

For example, responding to concern in the field over the number of reds the iGen3 could reach with the original color gamut, the company actually changed the pigment of the red toner to reach further into the red area. Debolt notes that because the engineering of all Xerox products starts with the toner, such a change was a major decision, but one that was derived from customer feedback, and thus revamped in a quarterly update.

Xerox also added in-line finishing (perfect binders, signature booklet makers and a fusion punch) to its entire DocuColor product line from the 2045 up through iGen3, and an additional feeder module addresses the need for in-plants and other users to run a wider range of stock and in larger quantities. The introduction of an inline UV coating system is planned for later this year.

"Initially, the in-line UV Coater will be for iGen3 only but since it will be DFA [Document Finishing Architecture] compliant, we will certainly evaluate enabling it on other products, including DC8000 and perhaps Nuvera," explains Debolt.

Because many of Xerox's monochrome devices reside at in-plants, the company is helping in-plant users migrate into color by easing the learning curve for operators through the use of common controllers and feature functionality.

In-plant Popularity

The iGen3 has attracted the attention of in-plants. Both Allstate and The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign recently added one. But a close competitor of the iGen3, the Kodak NexPress 2100, seems to have even more in-plant interest. Ohio State University, Louisiana's Office of State Printing and Minnesota Life Insurance have installed them, and Louisiana State University just added its second. Also, Principal Financial Group put in five of them last year.

Formally launched at Print 01, the NexPress 2100 can run 2,100 A3 impressions per hour. It uses the company's DryInk technology.

According to Len Christopher, director of market development for NexPress, the core technology on the device remains intact, but recent upgrades include the capability to add a fifth color station, as well as the introduction of the NexGlosser for glossy applications. The additional color station can be used for spot colors (currently available are blue, green and red), opening up the gamut to 86 percent of all Pantone colors.

The station can be also used for another Kodak innovation: new ClearDry Ink, which can put down a watermark or durability coat to allow the finished piece to withstand scuffing and abrasions. The most appealing use of the ClearDry Ink, Christopher says, is to flood coat a page with the clear ink (on top of the other printed colors) and then run it through the NexGlosser to create a gloss effect of near photographic quality on both sides of the sheet. Though this opens up great possibilities in photographic and other high-end applications, the functionality also has appeal to in-plants producing high-quality marketing materials. LSU plans to install one this month.

Christopher says the ability to handle a variety of stocks due to the paper feed mechanism and the concept of operator replaceable components (ORCs), give the NexPress 2100 significant appeal.

New HP Indigo Product

Another front-runner in the digital color race is HP Indigo, which just released the HP Indigo press 1050, designed for small- to medium-sized printers. Billed as the successor to the HP Indigo press 1000, it prints up to six colors, including invisible and fluorescent inks, and hits speeds of up to 8,000 pages per hour.

HP touts enhancements that reduce the cost of operation and increase productivity, such as a more powerful computer that increases RIPing performance, a large job-file capacity and simultaneous batching/printing ability. The 1050 also works with a range of substrates.

Stock Up

The need to use a variety of different stocks is growing among in-plants. This is because the level of complexity of the jobs in-plants receive is rising.

"Since easier jobs are increasingly being printed by the user themselves at the desktop or on the local office printer, it's the more challenging output that gets sent to the in-plant print operation with a CLC device," explains Richard Reamer, product marketing manager at Canon USA.

This demand for media handling flexibility resulted in Canon's introduction of a new 3,500-sheet side paper deck that allows the machines to run heavy stock—up to 140-lb. index.

Canon has also added enhanced color management tools, variable data printing options, and numerous finishing options to its CLC line, which includes the CLC 4000 (40 ppm), CLC 5000 (50 ppm) and CLC 5100 (51 ppm).

Among the finishing options designed to specifically meet the in-plant environment's needs is the addition of a new Nagel finisher for inline booklet making, to enable the in-house production of magazines, newsletters and other periodicals. The company also introduced an offset finisher: the high-capacity TS-100 for easy transfer to offline finishing devices.

With these enhancements, the CLC continues to be a popular choice for in-plants producing high-end brochures, booklets, marketing collateral and direct mail, as well as less color-critical applications like financial reports and PowerPoint presentations on a wider range of stock.

Diversifying Into Cut-sheet Market

Traditionally dominant mainly in the high-volume transactional document world, Océ diversified into the color cut-sheet market with the introduction of the color CPS 700 in 2002. Evolving out of the original CPS 700, the CPS 900 was launched in 2004 with significant speed and resolution improvements. The more recent CPS 800 includes copy capabilities.

The newer CPS models still use the company's patented ColorPress seven-color toner technology that presses toner down onto the stock rather than relying on a toner transport system. The benefits of this technology lie in the toner's ability to absorb into a range of stock, including textured papers, as well as to improve lay-down on jobs that will be UV coated or laminated.

One of the most important selling features of the CPS line, according to Océ's Greg Cholmondeley, is the trouble-free consistency of color from run to run and device to device, without calibration. This is important for the production of marketing materials, direct mail pieces and other quality printing applications.

"In fact," Cholmondeley says, "it produces such great quality that we are going to be producing our own marketing collateral on demand to show potential customers exactly what it's capable of."

105-ppm Ink-jet Printing

At Graph Expo Riso unveiled the HC5000 full color ComColor ink-jet printer, which prints up to 105 pages per minute at sizes up to 11x17˝. With low running costs of $.03 per page in full color, the device is engineered to run monthly volumes as high as 250,000. The HC5000 uses Riso's FORCEJET technology, combining a powerful print engine, a Piezo ink-jet system able to reproduce up to 8 gradations per drop and a high-speed paper feeding system. Also, the ComColor color management System guarantees outstanding color reproduction while reducing ink usage, resulting in lower operating costs.

Ink-jet Applications

Even transactional printing equipment is creeping towards commercial color applications. Kodak Versamark, long dominant in transactional and addressing equipment, wants to make its ink-jet equipment accessible to a wider range of users.

Of note is the VT 3000 printing system, introduced at Drupa 2004. It utilizes the company's continuous ink-jet technology at speeds of up to 500 fpm or 2,180 impressions (81⁄2x 11˝) per minute. Although primarily geared to the production of high-volume transactional documents and direct mail applications, it can print spot and process color, making it more appealing than traditional monochrome transactional printers. Users can upgrade from one-up to two-up or from monochrome to process color over time.

"Our process color printing systems are designed to bridge the gap that exists between high-volume, lower cost per impression monochrome printing systems and lower-volume, higher cost per impression systems such as the iGen3, NexPress 2100 or Xeikon engines," notes Steve Coburn, manager of Systems Products. "The V-series systems are designed to enable process color capability at price points that are more closely aligned to high-volume monochrome systems currently used for transactional, direct mail and POD applications."

Coburn admits that the VT3000 does not offer the same quality as the cut-sheet digital presses. But he adds that many VT3000 users are producing marketing products and POD output on the press during the machine's non-peak times.

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Find Out More

Canon www.usa.canon.com

HP Indigo h30011.www3.hp.com

IBM Printing Systems www.ibm.com/printers

Kodak VersaMark www.kodakversamark.com

NexPress www.nexpress.com

Océ USA www.oceusa.com

Riso www.riso.com

Xeikon www.xeikon.com

Xerox www.xerox.com/printing