IMAGE CORPORATION -- Color At its Core

BY MARK SMITH

At first glance, Image Corporation, of San Jose, CA, might seem to offer an usual mix of services. The company currently has triangulated in on its market by offering prepress, trade show/exhibit and printing (digital and conventional offset) services. This range of services grew organically out its core competencies, reveals owner Don Watson.

"I've found that color scanning, color management, prepress and file/project management skills—the core competencies of our organization—naturally extend to a variety of different output devices and products lines," Watson explains. As the company has expanded, it has continued to focus primarily on serving the corporate market in Silicon Valley, he adds.

Watson started the company as a one-man operation, by and large, although his brother also was involved on an informal basis. Steve Watson officially joined the staff about a year later. Both brothers had traditional stripping backgrounds, which was the initial business focus of the company.

In short order, the shop's volume of work justified installing a Screen SG 737 color drum scanner, rather than jobbing out its scans. Next came a high-end assembly station, and then a duplicate drum scanner. The equipment was used to produce films for packaging, publications and general commercial work.

For one client, in particular, the commercial work included producing composite film negatives for a lot of point-of-purchase displays, according to Watson. That created a need to show composite color proofs with images. "I saw a large-format ink-jet printer at a show and realized we could bring it into the plant, color manage the device to match our scans and produce actual size ink-jet proofs of the point-of-sale displays. The client was very pleased," the company owner reports.

Profiting From Big Prints
That straightforward application led to what has turned out to be a major business opportunity in producing large-format prints for exhibit panels and in-lobby graphics. Management did have to make some adjustments to its business plan along the way, though.

"Part of our original plan included trying to sell ink-jet panels to exhibit companies, but we found we were coming in too far down stream from the clients originating the projects. We needed to be involved in the planning stage with those end clients," Watson recalls.

"We were then approached by an exhibit manufacturer, called Expo Displays, to become a dealer of its modular pop-up trade show booths. That relationship enables us to sell clients a complete solution in modular pop-up booths," he continues.

"My cousin had a lot of experience in the large-format exhibit prints market from the photo lab side of the business, so we brought him in to take over that division. With this new level of expertise and talent for design, we started getting into producing custom exhibits."

The trade show business came together by the beginning of 1998, and currently the company has six wide-format ink-jet color printers. It also has added complete laminating, mounting and finishing capabilities.

About that same time, management started researching the technologies and opportunities in standard-format digital printing. By the end of 1998, it had installed an Indigo TurboStream color press.

"We were able to apply our color management and other core skills to that press, and customers started seeing us as a printing company," Watson says.

"Then, customers started asking us to offer larger size, more traditional printing," he continues. "My desire never was to become a traditional printing company, but as more of the printers started putting in imagesetters and CTP systems, we decided it was time to put in a press. We saw an opportunity to extend our reputation and core competencies into offset work."

In the first quarter of 2000, Image Corporation installed its first non-digital output device, a six-color plus coater MAN Roland 306 PLV press with a 23.25x29˝ sheet size. However, Watson made a commitment from the very beginning not to produce any jobs from film on the press.

"We were putting together the most advanced technologies in prepress, press and postpress—including implementing CIP4—and they won't work with an analog workflow," he explains. "Also, since we are a film company, we certainly didn't want to use somebody else's film on our press. The press is a very sophisticated output device, but we are able to control its color reproduction through our prepress processes and systems."

Image Corporation installed a Screen PlateRite 8000 thermal platesetter to image Fujifilm thermal plates. The shop had to get an eight-page model because the maximum plate size of the four-up machine was 30mm shorter than the format of its three-quarter-size press, Watson says. The larger format also gives the shop more flexibility as it looks to install a second, and possibly third, press in the future, he adds.

Customers have been impressed with the print quality of the CTP workflow, the company exec points out, but for some that came as a surprise. Not so for Watson. "Knowing what I know about conventional prepress, I wouldn't have gone into printing any other way. Thankfully the technology was there when we were ready to make the move," he says.

As part of its prepress services, the company had been outputting imposed eight-up film for years, Watson notes. It still uses its Screen MT-R1120 imagesetter and a Screen DT-R1065 four-page device, both driven by TaigaSPACE front ends. With that experience to draw upon, the move to CTP production was basically as easy as redirecting files to the new device, he claims.

"We chose the PT-R8000 for its speed, but we also liked its connectivity. All we had to do was plug it into our Taiga systems.

"Actually, the platesetter hit the plant's loading dock on a Friday afternoon, then the power was hooked up on the following Monday morning and the staff started doing linearization. By the end of that same day, we were printing the first job using plates from the device.

"As a small business, I have to make sure my equipment purchasing decisions are rock solid," comments the company owner. "Screen's integration into our workflow has been the strongest of any of the options. We always consider all the other alternatives before making a final choice, though."

Another critical buying decision was finding a digital proofing system to support the CTP workflow, Watson points out.

"Our criteria included that it be pigment-based so it would match our traditional Fujifilm Color-Art or Imation Matchprint proofs. We also felt it was very important to have a dot structure in the digital proofing system that matched the plate. The only way I could see to do that was to have the same front end drive the platesetter and proofer."

Watson had been following Screen efforts in conjunction with Fuji Photo Film to bring Color-Art materials to the digital arena. The ultimate result of that alliance is the Fujifilm FinalProof, which uses hardware OEMed from Screen to image Fujifilm materials.

"We're now able to get the same screen angles and dot shapes on the proof and plate," he says.

Keeping Color Consistent
Like the equipment and processes that drive them, Image Corporation's three areas of operation also are integrated at the marketing and sales level. Watson sometimes refers to them as divisions to help potential customers understand the scope of the operation, but all services are sold under the same umbrella.

"For example, the exhibits group might go into a larger corporation and sell the marketing department on a booth design, but then also show the company how its trade show panels and collateral can all look consistent. If we handle the complete project, we can keep the color consistent throughout," he points out.

"Customers definitely will buy trade show and collateral work from one company, but work also flows in the other direction. Prepress and printing buyers will use our trade show services. Clients like that we're a one-stop shop. We can pull together a whole marketing project, and they only have to deal with one customer service rep."

From an organizational standpoint, the next big project for Image Corporation is a move to larger quarters when its lease expires this fall. Watson also is involved in negotiations to add a second press at the new location.

The future definitely looks bright for this multifaceted company, assuming the power stays on. Watson reports his company hasn't felt much impact from California's energy crisis. The company did have its power cut once, but it was given advance notice and the outage lasted less than two hours. "They say the worse may be yet to come, so who knows. . ." he observes.