DIGITAL digest
Digital Printing Set to Heat Up Miami Event
MIAMI BEACH, FL—"The event of the Future" is how Graphics of the Americas and Xplor International are billing their combined conference and exhibit, collectively set to run from February 1-5 at the Miami Beach Convention Center.
Along with Xplor's Global Document Exchange conference, featuring its traditional electronic document curricula, the event will host six additional educational programs of varying lengths (1-4 days). Included will be the PDF for Print Production Print Forum and Tutorials, XML for Print Production Forum and Tutorials, Digital Technologies to Grow Your Bottom Line seminar, Creative Suite Power Tour, Photoshop for Photographers Tour seminar and CIP4 User's Group Meeting.
A total of more than 225 sessions are scheduled over the five days, with Xplor's document conference accounting for 130 sessions in nine tracks.
While maintaining its strong foundation in offset printing equipment and consumables, Graphics of the Americas 2006 will see an expansion of digital products and technologies in its Definitely Digital Highway, On-demand Book Making Factory and Wide-format Hall exhibition areas. In addition, the Adobe Theatre, Design City and Printer's Showcase areas will offer displays geared toward creative, marketing and advertising professionals.
The exhibition will run February 3-5, and is expected to feature products and technologies from more than 500 vendors. For more information, visit www.graphicsoftheamericas.com.
CIP4 Initiative Loses Industry Pioneer
Darmstadt, Germany—Dr. Jürgen Schönhut, one of the driving forces behind the industry initiative that today is CIP4 (The International Cooperation for the Integration of Processes in Prepress, Press and Postpress), has passed away.
In the mid 1980s, Jürgen helped establish the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics (IGD) in Darmstadt, Germany, and was a department head at the institute until his sudden death. Starting in 1993, he directed the scientific work at the institute that resulted in the Print Production Format (PPF) data exchange specification. That work led Jürgen to help found the CIP3 (International Cooperation for Integration of Prepress, Press, and Postpress) organization in 1995. When CIP3 was reorganized into CIP4, he was elected member of its advisory board.
digital bytes
PALO ALTO, CA—Multiple printers report having recently installed a HP Indigo Press 5000 digital color system. MegaPrint Digital Printing in Elmont, CA, added its new press as a complement to an existing HP Indigo Press 3050 six-color system. Having grown into one of the largest sheetfed offset printers in the Minneapolis market, Shapco Printing is now expanding into digital printing with its machine. MJM Graphic Communications, Rockville, MD, has installed the press to offer "wholesale pricing" on digital printing for local print shops, ad agencies and photographers.
MIAMI—Franklin/Trade Graphics has installed a Xerox iGen3 110 digital production press, said to be the first in the city, to complement its sheetfed and non-heatset web printing capabilities.
EDEN PRAIRIE, MN—To meet the seasonal crunch in yearbook production, Lifetouch Publishing, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lifetouch Inc., has installed three fully automatic Fujifilm Saber Luxel Vx-9600 violet laser platesetters from Enovation Graphic Systems.
STAMFORD, CT—Switching from running short-run work on a larger conventional press to a Kodak DirectPress 5634 DI system reportedly has enabled Printech Inc. to more efficiently meet growing customer demand.
SUNNYVALE, CA—Oakmead Printing, also known as 2DirectPress.com, has installed a Kodak DirectPress 5634 DI digital offset press to boost its production efficiency. The company previously printed four-color jobs on two-color presses.
SOLANA BEACH, CA—In a bid to accelerate the adoption of personalized and variable printing, Printable Technologies has cut the price of the latest FusionPro Desktop software release by more than 90 percent. The template driven, Adobe PDF-based variable data application is now available in software/service packages starting at $399. It is said to still be a fully functional application that currently supports eight output data streams, including PDF, PostScript, VDX, PPML, VPS, VIPP, HP PPML and Digimaster PS.
HERZLIA, ISRAEL—Creo Print On-Demand Solutions Group (PODS), a unit of Kodak's Graphic Communications Group, reports achieving PPML-based integration between its digital color server line and DirectSmile's variable data printing (VDP) application suite. Built on Adobe InDesign, the VDP software reportedly is used by digital printers in more than 20 countries.
VALHALLA, NY—Fuji Photo Film says it plans to build a second plate production line at its facility in Tilburg, the Netherlands. The new plate line will be dedicated to the production of offset CTP plates and reportedly represents a nearly $48 million investment in the market.
BROADVIEW, IL—Classic Color is implementing contract-quality, monitor-based color proofing from content creator through to the pressroom by installing Kodak Matchprint Virtual for InSite and Matchprint Virtual PressProof software.
ROCKVILLE, MD—EU Services has invested in a second Xerox DocuColor iGen3 digital color production press. The full-service direct mail communications provider employs more than 350 people.
