News

Well now that Drupa is over and we are no longer rushing from hall to hall and meeting to meeting, what stood out at Drupa as the most important or most interesting developments? The following is my selection. In this, I am not looking at any offset, flexo or gravure presses or developments since I did not have time for a comprehensive look at these technologies.

Heidelberg Prinect – The total networking and integration of all products in the two Heidelberg halls was a real demonstration of the printshop of the future. Every product, and there were around 80, was connected via a high-speed backbone to a central data server facility and through applications like Prinect Integration Manager the status of every device could be monitored and information sent to each of them. Around 100 data servers managed the total operation. Connectivity even included non-Heidelberg devices including internet-based storefront products including Pageflex from Bitstream and print4media from Diron. This was probably the most comprehensive totally integrated working JDF demonstration that has been seen.

High-Speed colour inkjet presses – The HP Inkjet Web Press and the Kodak Stream Concept press showed the future with technology that may impact heavily on the medium-run profitable offset market. The Océ JetStream family showed that quality and high speed can be achieved together and that drop on demand piezo technology can match current continuous inkjet technology for speed. It was also interesting to see the great interest in the use of these inkjet presses for newspaper production in the Océ and HP presses and the Screen Truepress Jet 520.

FFEI Emblaze Digital Coater ­– Fujifilm was showing Emblaze, a new inkjet UV coater from FFEI. This is a product built using an array of Xaar 1001 printheads with a maximum imaging size of 605x750 mm. It provides a broad range of coated finishes from gloss and matt spot UV coatings to creation of special effects and textures. It is driven by a digital file so can enhance any product. There is obviously potential for development of this product in a smaller format to link up inline with the B3 format digital presses to provide a better coating and enhancement facility than they offer at present.

VIM process free plates without a platesetter – The new
VIM plates are unique as they are imaged on a standard Epson colour inkjet printer. Unlike other inkjet platesetters that employ special imaging solutions and need some further processing, this uses the standard Epson ink. When printed onto the plate, the ink reacts with the plate coating to create an offset printing surface for conventional offset printing. There is no processing and the plate is immediately reading for printing. This could be the real low-cost CTP entry
point for many printers. The plates should be available in early 2009.

Single pass inkjet presses – This could be classified as the arrival of the single pass inkjet print engine show. We have had some single pass engines such as the Agfa Dotrix, Kodak Versamark and Screen Truepress Jet520 before, but this Drupa saw the arrival of this technology in force. In the high-speed continuous feed market, we had new products from HP, Impika, Kodak, and Océ.  We saw the first B2 sheetfed presses from Fujifilm and Screen using Dimatix and Epson printheads. Xaar 1001 heads were seen everywhere including label presses from EFI Jetrion, FFEI/Nilpeter and Founder and industrial presses from Xennia for labels and ceramic printing. There are no doubt others I have forgotten to mention. This is a market that will just grow and grow.

In the digital area, it was a very interesting Drupa to see many of the technologies that will challenge the industry in future. In this review, I haven’t covered any of the small companies showing innovative future oriented products in the Drupa Innovation Parc that emphasised the challenge coming from internet-based print operations. Only four more years to Drupa 2012.

BEST OF THE REST
MyPhotoFun 1 hour photo album solution – MyPhotoFun from The Netherlands is one of the world leaders in digital photo album production. It works on a global basis with partners using Xerox iGen3 presses. The application, which is also sold by Xerox, makes it easy for small printers, copy shops, photographic shops etc to easily get into the lucrative online photobook market. This application, run on an ASP model, allows a shop owner to offer a full photobook service with internet-based credit card payments using the Dutch host server operation, but where output is back to the shop owner’s digital press. Xerox is selling this service around the new Xerox 700 Digital Press

X-Rite ColorMunki and Color Exchange Format (CxF) – X-Rite released the latest CxF2 together with the first showing of its Pantone ColorMunki spectrophotometer. ColorMunki is the first truly easy-to-use colour accurate specification and selection tool and software for the creative community. CxF will be the means by which accurate colour specifications and spot colour selections will be carried through the total workflow