Kodak Introduces Nexpress with Print Genius Suite #ipex

BIRMINGHAM, UK—May 21, 2010—Eastman Kodak Co. new Print Genius suite for Kodak Nexpress Digital Presses, on display at Ipex, Hall 9 – E320, the world’s leading commercial print trade show, brings new photo publishing capabilities that expand commercial printer service offerings and improve production efficiency. When combined with expanded connectivity to online service providers, the Kodak Nexpress Digital Color Solution becomes one of the most innovative solutions in the industry, with outstanding image quality at real world digital print speeds, opening up more opportunity for commercial printers to grab a piece of the high growth personal photo product market, including photobooks, greeting cards and calendars.

The improvements begin with the new Print Genius suite, which brings together image science, quality assurance and workflow productivity to provide superior quality and higher efficiency through new enhanced dry ink developers, intelligent image calibration and closed loop quality control. This raises the bar of print quality for commercial printers—all at real world production speed. In addition, new workflow productivity solutions including ADOBE PDF Print Engine to minimize RIP time, enhanced object caching and long life operator replaceable components maximize productivity and boost profit potential for Kodak partners.

“Consumers capture and share billions of digital photos and trillions of frames of video, and they want to combine their captured memories to tell their life stories, creating a huge opportunity for commercial printers,” said Isidre Rosello, General Manager, Digital Printing Solutions, Vice President, Eastman Kodak Company. “With the combination of our new Print Genius suite and online connectivity, Nexpress owners can tap into more profit opportunity than ever before. According to InfoTrends, the billion-dollar photo product market is growing at 23 percent year on year[i], and with our new solution we believe we have the world’s highest quality, most productive photo capable commercial solution in the industry, providing maximum profit potential for our partners at real world production speeds.”

Connectivity for the Nexpress Press photo applications provides enhanced services for both consumer and professional applications, and Kodak has connection to fulfillers around the globe who have Kodak Nexpress Digital Production Presses, and who are leveraging Kodak’s Photo Website Hosting and Desktop Premium Product software. They can now generate highly profitable photobooks, greeting cards, personalized postcards, calendars and other merchandise with standard and Kodak Nexpress Intelligent Dimensional Coating Solution and Glossing pages combined. The dimensional pages offer Nexpress Press owners the opportunity to generate additional revenue at higher margins than typical printed pages.

Professional photo labs entering or expanding their photo merchandising business will benefit from improved connectivity between Kodak Professional Digital Print Production Software and Nexpress Presses. Output to a Nexpress Press from DP2 provides an automated workflow with job ticketing and queue management for producing a wide range of professional photobooks and other products, which again can be further enhanced with KODAK NEXPRESS Dimensional Clear Dry Ink. Third-party photo merchandise creation software tools will also enable users to output to a Nexpress Press from enterprise desktop applications. This capability enables businesses to produce photo merchandise directly from a standard industry file format, such as Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF).

“Kodak’s customers can immediately use these technologies to increase opportunities for their businesses,” said Phil Faraci, President and Chief Operating Officer, Eastman Kodak Company. “The rise in popularity of digital photos represents a significant segment where printers can drive growth through services aimed at helping consumers preserve photos for generations, with high-quality printing such as personalized photobooks and calendars. Because of Kodak’s broad portfolio of imaging and printing solutions, we are ideally suited to facilitate that connection between capture and output.”

Kodak Products are backed by Kodak Service and Support. Kodak Service and Support is made up of more than 3,000 professionals in 120 countries. It is a leading multi-vendor integrated services provider, delivering consulting, installation, maintenance and support services for commercial printing, graphic communications, document imaging, data storage and retail industries. Kodak Service and Support professionals are uniquely qualified to provide services that control costs, maximize productivity, and minimize business risk.

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