Product of the Week

It’s taken 30 years, but the print industry has finally moved, en masse, from craft to industry. But like all wholesale change, different sectors of the industry have moved at different rates. Larger printers have been among the early adopters of kit that cuts down on individuals’ labour and skill, substituting instead automated processes that don’t call for operator input. But increasingly, smaller printers need the same tools: their throughput might be smaller, but just as for their bigger counterparts, the returns are proportionate to turnover.

US direct-imaging leader Presstek has been listening to its global customer base of small-format printers, and has set out to quench the small-format sector’s thirst for process automation. Its new Momentum Pro workflow is the first in what product marketing manager John Flynn promises to be “a series of products designed to give small printers the tools they need to increase profitability and decrease labour overheads”.

The Momentum Pro workflow is a development of Presstek’s existing Momentum RIP, the Harlequin-based engine used to drive the company’s portfolio of DI presses. “We originally specified it [the RIP, like the new workflow, is an OEM deal for Presstek] to be very simple to use,” says Flynn, “but inevitably that means there isn’t a lot of automation. Our customers were asking for more PDF editing capabilities, pre-flighting, and action lists.” Increasing numbers of Presstek customers were turning to third-party manufacturers for workflows to tack onto their Momentum RIP and Presstek was losing a market opportunity, so Momentum Pro was launched at GraphExpo in September.

Wide appeal
Momentum Pro is effectively a core engine with a lot of add-ons offered as extras, either by Presstek or by third-party developers. In this way, Presstek has kept the price of the workflow low enough, yet its base functionality wide enough, to appeal to its target market of small DI, offset and digital printers. To summarise, the central engine handles PDF normalisation, preflighting, job tracking and basic proofing all according to user-defined workflow paths. More advanced functions such as colour management, customer proofing, PDF editing, imposition, in-RIP trapping and generation of CIP4/PPF data are offered as optional extras; PDF editing comes courtesy of a third-party editor, from developers such as Enfocus or Adobe. However, even with such a pricing model, Presstek has kept the overall costs achievable for its customer base. Building a fully-featured PDF workflow for, say, three users, including PDF editing capabilities, would still leave a printer change from £15,000.

Workflows are built in Momentum Pro via a drag-and-drop interface, and files are triggered into the workflow via hotfolders. Once in the workflow, the basic engine detects (and fixes where possible) a range of basic problems including missing fonts and graphics, images in inappropriate colour spaces, incorrectly specified spot colours and images with too low or too high a resolution. Jobs can be tracked by name, status, priority, workflow and job number, and proofing can be done by printing to any laser printer on the network, or the core engine can also create a low-resolution PDF file that can be emailed to a customer for approval.

Optional extras
The optional extras give a high level of sophistication to the basic engine. MTrapPro, the in-RIP trapper (only available for the Momentum Pro RIP) offers automated application of sliding and feathered traps, control of super-blacks, and small object protection – although this last one is misleadingly named, as it currently only works with type (Flynn says an object-orientated version of this is due for release in the next software version). Likewise the MProof plug-in, which gives the ability to drive pro-level proof printers using ICC profiles, also adds file integrity by using the same PDF as prints to the proofer, to output to the platesetter or press.

One might assume that a small-format printer might be in little need of imposition capabilities, but Presstek knows different, and is offering MStrip imposition tools as part of the Momentum’s optional package. Screening is standard AM as part of the core RIP engine, but again Presstek is offering the Harlequin Dispersed Screening capability as the basis for an FM option. And there’s a CIP4 option which enables the Momentum RIP to produce Print Production Format (PPF) files containing CIP4 data for press set-up.

One of the main benefits of Momentum Pro, as Flynn sees it, is in its client-server architecture that allows users to set up and monitor the entire workflow from their own workstation. “Previously you had to go over to the RIP and set it all up and manage it there, even if you linked it to another manufacturer’s workflow,” he says. “Now you can do it all in the same place.” It’s also worth noting that a single Momentum Pro workflow can drive multiple Momentum RIPs at a minimal optional cost of £170 per extra RIP.

Presstek’s world being a digital one, Flynn talks of presses and platesetters as “devices”. Via a 1-bit TIFF file, the Momentum RIP can output to any device (platesetter, digital press or DI press). Included as standard in the core engine is the ability to generate ‘thumbprints’ (the low-res previews used by Presstek DI presses and platesetters), and also the ability to create QMDI ink key files that set up the Heidelberg Quickmaster DI press’s ink keys at the beginning of a job (the QMDI was originally made by Presstek for Heidelberg, but now Heidelberg has moved away from DI, Presstek continues to support them). “It all adds to the automation levels, and reduces operator input,” says Flynn.

The Momentum Pro workflow signals Presstek’s entry into the process automation arena, but that’s only the beginning: the company has serious plans to offer a full range of process automation tools to its small-format user-base. Earlier this month, it announced its entry into web-to-print, via a partnership with Press-sense, whose iWay product will be tweaked for Presstek users and sold to them as a Presstek-branded PDF-based digital storefront solution. “We will offer a complete solution in the near future,” says Flynn. “We’ve always been driven by our sales of devices and plates, but our customers are finding that they can only drive a device so fast. After they get to optimum speed, they need other ways of improving their overall business, and driving more jobs to the device. So we make more plates, and the customer makes more money,” he concludes.

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SPECIFICATIONS
RIP engine Harlequin
Input formats PostScript, PDF, EPS, TIFF 6.0, 1-bit TIFF
Output formats proprietary to Presstek & AB Dick platesetters and DI presses, plus 1-bit TIFF, 8-bit TIFF
Operating systems
Server OS: Windows XP,
Windows 2000 Pro,
Windows 2003 Server.
Client: Mac OS X or
Windows OSs as above
Price
£5,450 (workflow and RIP only, excluding workstations, for two clients)
MProof proofing option: £500 depending on printer.
MTrapPro in-RIP trapping: £1,000.
MStrip imposition: £500.
FM screening: £2,500.
Extra clients: £170 per client.
Contact Presstek Europe 020 8745 8000 www.presstek.com

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THE ALTERNATIVES
Esko Artwork Odystar
Odystar doesn’t use the Adobe PDF Print Engine (APPE) that’s getting some workflow developers hot under the collar; instead it uses its own PDF libraries and RIP engine. Mac OS X-based only, and preflighting comes courtesy of sister company Enfocus’s eponymous preflighter. Advanced trapping, impositioning and JDF job tickets all standard. It can work with any RIP, but hooking up Esko Artwork’s own Odystar RIP makes available concentric screening, said to give higher print quality and lower ink consumption.
RIP engine Proprietary
Input formats wide range of native file formats, PDF, PostScript
Output formats PDF/X-1a, PDF/X-3, PostScript, various image file formats
Operating systems Mac OS X only
Price £8,700-£24,000
Contact Esko Artwork 01527 585805 www.esko.com

Screen Trueflow
Screen’s workflow is specifically designed for the same range of output devices as Presstek’s – platesetters and digital presses – although Trueflow can also drive wide-format digital presses. It’s based on Adobe’s PDF Print Engine, and so can handle all the standard PDF input and output formats. Trueflow includes pre-flighting, colour conversion, imposition, trapping and – by the Screen HQ-510 engine – ripping. It allows late-stage changes in output device – so you can flip from digital press to platesetter with all necessary changes made semi-automatically.
IP engine APPE
Input formats PDF, PostScript, all main image types
Output formats PDF/X-1a, PDF/X-3, PostScript, various image file formats
Operating systems Mac OS X and Windows
Price from £15,000
Contact Screen Europe 01908 848500 www.screeneurope.com

Agfa ApogeeX for Digital Printing
Output is designed specifically for Agfa’s digital presses Dotrix and M-Press, but of course the obligatory 1-bit TIFF file will drive just about any RIP. Like all Agfa’s workflows, this one uses the Adobe PDF Print Engine; job ticketing is standard, but not JDF-enabled. Pre-flighting, imposition, trapping, soft proofing and output are all included; automatic trapping and hard copy proofing are options.
RIP engine APPE
Input formats PostScript, PDF, EPS
Output formats Certified PDF
Operating systems Mac OS X and Windows
Price from £6,000
Contact Agfa 020 8231 4983 www.agfa.com