Author: ColorFX
Debunking the Myths of Digital Printing #1
ColorFx is excited to introduce a 4 part series debunking the urban legends of Digital Color Printing. Whether you are a graphic designer, creative director, account planner, production manager or printer, uncovering these urban legends will be an exciting and enlightening journey. We would like to welcome you to the world of enlightened print decision making!
Case Study No. 1: Image Quality
The Legend: Digital color printing doesn’t meet professional image quality standards. In particular, it doesn’t measure up to offset lithography.
Some Vocabulary: Offset Printing, Digital Color Printers
Offset Printing: A commonly used printing technique where the inked image is transferred (or “offset”) from a plate to a rubber blanket, then to the printing surface.
Digital Printing: The reproduction of digital images on a physical surface. It is generally used for short print runs, and for the customization of print media. Every print can be different, because printing plates are not required, as in traditional methods.
From the Beginning:
This idea dates back to the first digital printers and copiers, which fell short of offset litho quality. Many current color copiers and printers don’t achieve offset quality, but they do provide effective solutions for the less demanding applications they are designed to perform.
Digital color printers are in a completely different class. The industrial version of office digital printers, they’re designed for short runs and variable printing data printing, which makes them a perfect complement to offset presses. In fact, a number of models have emerged with image quality that rivals offset.
When making a comparison, the print quality of a digital press to offsets is as digital photos is to analog shots. Both have different characteristics that affect output, but the quality achieves professional standards in nearly every application.
How to Maximize Your Door Hanger Campaign
Door hangers can be a very effective way to help reel in more customers if executed properly. Using door hangers as a marketing technique is a form of interruption marketing and is very different than sending something like a postcard in the mail. Think about it for a second, postcards are delivered to the potential customer’s mailbox. They already expect to receive their regular mail and different forms of advertisement in their mailbox. If there’s a postcard in the mailbox they are probably not going to be surprised at all. However, door hangers are completely the opposite. When someone is walking into their house they are doing just that, walking. They are not expecting to see an advertisement hung from their door and we are trying to interrupt what they are doing and make them pay attention to our ads. They might pick up the door hanger and look at it, not look at it but bring into their house, or not look at it and throw it away. This is why the design of the door hanger plays a crucial role in an effective door hanger campaign. Continue Reading…
ColorFX adds the world class Xerox iGen4
ColorFx is proud to announce the addition of the Xerox iGen4 to its cutting edge printing press lineup.
Xerox has been a trusted name in the printing industry for many years and you would expect no less in terms of quality and efficiency from the Xerox iGen digital press product family. The iGen4 is a super high quality digital press and with its extremely robust print engine can print about 4 million pages per month. It offers superior turnaround times on each job and the great thing about this machine is that it is in line with ColorFx’s commitment to green printing by using non toxic dry ink and 97% recyclable or re-manufactured internal components. Continue Reading…
Konica bizhubPRO1200 Series of Digital Presses
Konica Minolta announces their brand new bizhub PRO 1200 series monochrome digital press and that it will be powered by EFI MicroPress RIP. The combination of technology from the bizhub line and EFI will deliver high performance and much feature-rich document solution that will allow for more control over the pre-press processes. The new bizhub monochrome digital press is stated to combine the two most important elements in printing, quality and speed. The top model, the bizhub 1200 and the bizhub 1200 PRO, is docked at printing 120 ppm whereas the lower model, the bizhub Pro 1051, is at 105 ppm.
Kevin Kern, Senior Vice President, Marketing, Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A. Inc. was quoted:
“Our bizhub PRO 1200 Series is built to be a professional replacement for offset systems in the digital era, so we once again joined forces with EFI, a leader in digital RIP and workflow technology, to drive these systems.”
Because the EFI MicroPress streamlines and automates workflows it allows for an increase in efficiency and reduction of cost. Natively, EFI MicroPress can process PostScript, PDF and XPS at a more efficient rate and accurate output. This is especially useful for last minute jobs because you won’t have to revert back to a native file to make any changes. The EFI MicroPress is also scalable to manage and handle up to 12 digital print engines to meet future growth.