Category Archive

Process control and color management are the one-two punch that knocks out digital printing inefficiencies.

We continue our Profiles in Quarantine series this week with Pete Basiliere. Pete knows that even little things can make a difference when trying to keep your community together.

With the introduction of two new VarioPPRINT iX models, Canon is focused squarely on the needs of general commercial printers for high image quality on a wide media range and flexibility to run mixed media jobs at full speed. Canon will continue to market and support the current VarioPrint+ iSeries in the appropriate markets along with the new VarioPRINT iX Series. The new devices will be ready to ship in July 2020. See overview and supporting white paper.

Next up in our profiles in quarantine we find Ralf Schlozer who normally provides our European perspective on inkjet markets. While most people have been forced to stay home due

MindFire established the COVID-19 Print Group on LinkedIn to provide a forum for printers to help each other share volumes, information and advice as more states issue Stay at Home policies and organizations are forced to close leaving clients without service. In three days membership has grown from zero to nearly 800 members.

As we continue our series on Profiles in Quarantine, we visit Mark Bale who covers the most super-techy topics on Inkjet Insight that use math above my pay grade. Mark is based in UK which this week announced necessary, but very restrictive, measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. UK is under lockdown with residents instructed to stay indoors except for essential services and subject to fines for violating guidelines.

Successful inkjet production means transforming the workflow. Defining new workflows that deliver the right information in the preferred format to the right person at the right time – and track it at each step in the production and delivery process using your new equipment requires hard work and leadership. Lois Ritarossi suggests key steps to evaluate and guidance on change management and leadership in workflow redesign.

Next up in our profiles in quarantine is the lady who spends much of her time profiling. Not the psycho criminal kind, the ink, paper, press kind. Mary, the inkjet

Usually when we talk about profiles here, we’re talking about paper and color profiles. Today, we’re going for a different kind of colorful by profiling the people behind the scenes here at Inkjet Insight and how we are managing through the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since we’re all in this together, let’s get to know who we’re in it with, starting with Amy Hahn our editor and social media coordinator who is based in Minnesota, USA.

Unicorn Graphics began in New York as a humble calendar printer in 1985 and has expanded into a multi-million-dollar creative print company offering a wide array of printed products.Looking beyond inkjet technology as a print service, Unicorn Graphics is bringing product, and product customization, to market using material which we don’t normally don’t think about printing on. Get ready to see some cool stuff.

This week HP provided a pre-drupa peek at the HP PageWide Web Press T250 HD and new Brilliant InkTM that will be added to its inkjet portfolio this year. Learn about the new capabilities of the device, available before the end of 2020, and how they compare to other devices already in the market from Canon, Ricoh and Screen.

Ralf Schlozer takes a careful look at aspects of the commercial printing market in Europe and where inkjet has and has not penetrated. Key adopters of different inkjet options are referenced along with expectations for future development.

Mike Todryk of IWCO Direct uses G7 color management across a range of production processes, including inkjet. In this post he lays to rest some misconceptions about G7 and its uses and shares insight on how the process can add value.

Let’s look at what’s in the industrial inkjet bucket, some estimates on the size of the market and the technical requirements that drive specialization of solutions to serve this highly varied segment.

In Europe, inkjet printing of books continues to have great success. And the good news? There is still room to grow in the book printing market. Ralf Schlozer shares information on top producers in Europe and key trends for 2020 and beyond.

Don’t let misconceptions deter you from evaluating 3D printing within your 2D printing business, but don’t go into it blindly. Ask yourself these questions as you consider expanding your inkjet business.

If you run light production equipment, you may not have given much thought to the Digital Front End of your printing device. There is no industry standard for what a DFE should encompass, or even a widely agreed set of guidelines. And, while you may have a choice of features and even vendors for the DFE, there hasn’t been much discussion of what should come next. What should you be asking for and when should you expect it?

In the previous post How to Make an Inkjet Sandwich I talked about the potential different ways that ink can react to a substrate when used in combination with other fluids such as primers or post-coatings. Those interactions make it critical to optimize all the fluids for your entire process, prior to linearization and profiling, to avoid print defects such as color to color bleed and coalescence.

Just as there are many types of inkjet printheads and ink, there are many types of processes for inkjet drying. Most printers combine several processes to create a drying solution. Ralf Schlozer discusses the fundamental factors related to drying in document and packaging printing environments including absorption, phase change, radiation and evaporation. It’s dry – but important.

There is no industry standard for what should be included in a digital front end, and there is no universal template that guides how much control the inkjet DFE should expose to an operator to permit changes in how a job will be processed. As we enter the 2020s, this is something that should change. It’s time for the buyers of inkjet presses to identify their expectations, list the features that make a difference to their operation, and categorize the challenges they may have with their current DFE.