Fujifilm To Demo Inkjet/Sign Making Solutions at ISA Expo

Valhalla, NY—March 15, 2012—FUJIFILM North America Corporation, Graphic Systems Division will display their “end-to-end” solutions for sign making and graphics professionals in booth # 2536 at the ISA International Sign Expo, March 22–24, 2012, at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida. Fujifilm will demonstrate its comprehensive range of industry-leading wide format printers, inks and media as well as powerful workflow software and color management tools designed to optimize and maximize output.

“Sign Expo will be a showcase for Fujifilm’s proven, reliable offering of the highest quality products and innovative solutions,” said Masahiro “Sam” Ota, division president, Graphic Systems Division, FUJIFILM North America Corporation. “Visitors to the Fujifilm booth will realize the strength of our promise to enable sign and display graphics providers to grow their businesses, improve productivity and increase profits.”

Among the products on display at the Fujifilm booth at ISA 2012:

Flatbed and Roll Printing Equipment
The new FUJIFILM Acuity LED 1600 wide format inkjet UV-LED printer will be shown for the first time at Sign Expo, and it is sure to interest sign making and display graphics professionals visiting the show. The Acuity LED uses a proprietary design, patent-pending UV-LED ink curing system to produce exceptional quality display graphics on roll or rigid substrates. LED curing technology provides many benefits including lower energy consumption and longer lamp life when compared to traditional metal halide UV curing technology. These benefits result in lower operating costs and reduced environmental impact, critical to staying competitive in today’s sign industry.

Reaching print speeds up to 215 sq ft/hr while providing outstanding quality output, the Acuity LED 1600 offers best-in-class productivity and provides the capacity and capability to meet customer demand for shorter delivery times. The Acuity LED provides a standard 8-color ink set including CMYK plus light cyan, light magenta, white and clear, and allows printing white or clear ink in a single pass for even greater productivity. Spot clear ink adds special effects to create more value to graphic displays and signs.

Also on display at ISA, the FUJIFILM Acuity Advance HS UV flatbed printer will demonstrate printing of near-photographic quality images at class-leading production speeds of 433 sq ft/hr. Utilizing greyscale printheads, the four-color Acuity also offers a white ink option for producing any number of print applications on substrates up to 1.89” thick. The Acuity Advance HS provides precise registration and edge-to-edge printing and offers a roll media option for a cost-effective hybrid solution. The versatility of the Acuity Advance HS makes it the ideal “first” flatbed, and prints direct to board, thereby eliminating mounting and laminating of roll stocks to rigid board.

The new Uvistar2 will be shown for the first time at Sign Expo, and will be particularly interesting for shops looking to make the transition from solvent to UV printing. The Uvistar2 is ideal for POP, banner and billboard printing, and is offered in 3.5 and 5 meter widths to handle most any type of job. A unique feature of the Uvistar2 is new Parallel Drop Size (PDS) technology that jets both 20 and 40-picoliter drops in the same pass, resulting in excellent print quality at fast production speeds. With coverage of up to 1,940 sq ft/liter, FUJIFILM QK inks for the Uvistar2 provide the lowest ink consumption compared to other UV roll printers. Uvistar2 is designed for quick and easy changeovers from one material to another, and has an optional set of flatbed tables that can be used to print on rigid stocks of any length.

Wide Format Media
All printers running live at the booth will feature Fujifilm and Ultraflex wide format media. Sign professionals will be able to view and get “hands-on” access to a variety of media, including a color-matched array of banner materials, premium papers, adhesive backed vinyl, backlit media, canvas, wall and floor graphic media, and perforated window film. All of the media is designed for use on flatbed and roll print equipment and is the perfect complement to Fujifilm’s printer and ink solutions, offering sign printers innovative ways to produce indoor and outdoor signage for virtually any application.

Software Solutions
Fujifilm will demonstrate a number of powerful solutions to common workflow challenges:

FUJIFILM ColorPath Sync is a Web-based tool for creating color curves, aligning output devices and ensuring color consistency across platforms and locations. Backed by Fujifilm’s industry-leading expertise in color consistency, ColorPath Sync allows printers to match output devices and maintain the consistency they achieved when first implementing the G7 specification. ColorPath Sync now uses unique browser "plug in" technology allowing the user to work directly from the browser in the web, eliminating the need for "client type" software. Information from ColorPath Sync can be exported to many popular workflows, which helps eliminate the potential for error. New for ISA 2012, ColorPath now features the integration of ColorGATE into the ColorPath solution. Color measurements can be sent directly to the Cloud-based solution from the popular inkjet RIP solution.

The Fujifilm Edition of ColorGATE Production Server is designed to be the center of your inkjet workflow. With support for over 750 different printers, it’s quite likely that it can drive every proofer, printer and finishing system in your shop. Combined with an outstanding color management engine and Fujifilm's technical expertise in color and you have a recipe for success. Perhaps most exciting is the addition of the Adobe PDF Print Engine (APPE). APPE allows the RIP to interpret the native PDF file to increase speed and eliminate problems with transparencies and layers. Let us show you how Fujifilm and ColorGATE can make a difference in the quality and consistency of the work you produce. One solution from Fujifilm—from proof to print to cut.

Esko Automation Engine gives printers the ability to automate their workflow with rock-solid quality control. Esko Automation Engine ensures increased efficiency and throughput in order to save both time and money. It’s an exceptional answer to the daily challenges of print professionals who need to increase quality, reduce errors and drive cost out of the process. Esko Automation Engine comes with extensive MIS integration capabilities and excellent scalability. Using database driven job management, Esko Automation Engine serves as the heart of any size prepress production operation. Through Mac or PC-based clients, and with an intuitive user interface, operators or administrative personnel can easily interact with the workflow and with its extensive conditional automation capabilities.

Industry-Leading Inks
Want better color from your inkjet printer or need to make an older printer run more efficiently? Fujifilm can help with its Color+ inkjet inks. Color+ inks have been developed to provide optimal performance on a wide variety of inkjet printers from most of the leading suppliers. By adapting the ink chemistry to precisely suit the characteristics of each inkjet device, Fujifilm’s Color + ink delivers stronger, more vibrant colors and reduces the need for printhead purging and maintenance. Much of the success of Color+ lies in Fujifilm’s proprietary MicroV fine pigment dispersion technology. This technology greatly reduces printhead clogging that is often related to large and inconsistent particulate found in some digital inks. In Color+, the loading of pigment, as well as the selection of pigment, offers stronger, brighter colors.

“This year’s Sign Expo gives Fujifilm a special opportunity to demonstrate our commitment to our customers and to the Sign and Graphics industry,” said Mitch Bode, vice president, Wide Format Inkjet and Specialty Ink Systems, Graphic Systems Division, FUJIFILM North America Corporation. “Fujifilm’s expertise and experience in imaging technologies allows us to create reliable, fully-featured products and services designed to maximize revenues and efficiency. We invite shops of every size and scope to visit our booth and find out how we can help them overcome their challenges and achieve their goals.”

The Fujifilm booth will feature the finest equipment and solutions running live throughout the show. Sign Expo 2012 visitors are encouraged to stop by booth #2536. To learn more about Fujifilm’s complete portfolio, please visit www.fujifilmusa.com/graphics.

About Fujifilm
FUJIFILM North America Corporation, a marketing subsidiary of FUJIFILM Holdings America Corporation consists of five operating divisions and one subsidiary company. The Imaging Division sells consumer and commercial photographic products and services including film, one-time-use cameras, online photo services and fulfillment, digital printing equipment and service. The Electronic Imaging Division markets consumer digital cameras. The Motion Picture Division provides motion picture film, and the Graphic Systems Division supplies products and services to the printing industry. The Optical Devices Division provides binoculars, and optical lenses for closed circuit television, videography, cinematography, broadcast and industrial markets. FUJIFILM Canada Inc. markets a range of Fujifilm products and services. For more information, please visit www.fujifilm.com/northamerica, or go to www.twitter.com/fujifilmus to follow Fujifilm on Twitter. To receive news and information direct from Fujifilm via RSS, subscribe at www.fujifilmusa.com/rss.

FUJIFILM Holdings Corporation, Tokyo, Japan, brings continuous innovation and leading-edge products to a broad spectrum of industries, including electronic imaging, digital printing equipment, medical systems, life sciences, graphic arts, flat panel display materials, and office products, based on a vast portfolio of digital, optical, fine chemical and thin film coating technologies. The company was among the top 16 companies around the world granted U.S. patents in 2010, and in the year ended March 31, 2011, had global revenues of $25.8 billion*. Fujifilm is committed to environmental stewardship and good corporate citizenship. For more information, please visit www.fujifilmholdings.com.

Source: Fujifilm.