Seybold Returns to Beantown
BOSTON—With all the hype and hoopla surrounding the return of Seybold to Boston last month, all roads led to the Hynes Center for the latest advancements in digital prepress, digital printing and "repurposing" content for the Internet.
From Adobe to Apple, from Markzware to Epson's Stylus 9000 and from Agfa to Creo, Seybold brought the digital movers and shakers back to Boston, where digital file transfer technologies, digital asset management, color proofing, thermal platesetting and every other degree of digital prepress stood on a very warm, very Bostonian, very welcome, familiar platform.
Adobe's John Warnock, president, and Charles Geschke, CEO, laid out their collective version of publishing for both print and the Internet during the exposition's opening keynote.
The highlight was the introduction of Adobe's InDesign, the latest page design tool from Adobe (the so-called "Quark killer" program formerly known only by its code name of "K2").
Other news from Adobe also included the introduction of Adobe's PressReady software, a printing and proofing tool. Adobe PressReady extends the latest generation of color ink-jet printers to deliver Adobe PostScript 3 output.
Other Seybold news included:
Large-format digital color output devices, ranging from ColorSpan's DisplayMaker XII Series, Roland's Hi-Fi Jet (a 1998 wide-format success story) and the big brother to EPSON's Stylus Pro 5000, the new Stylus Pro 9000—plus wide-format output options from Scitex—were strong indicators of technologies yet to come for wide-format printing.
At the Scitex booth, all the talk was of Timna, a production data management solution tuned specifically for the data-intensive nature of prepress and preprint production. Scitex also announced support for the advanced color measurement tools of X-Rite within the Scitex Profile Wizard color management and Iris ColorZone color calibration software, as well as a new relationship with Kodak Polychrome Graphics. DryView technology from Kodak Polychrome Graphics is now integrated into Scitex's new Dolev 4dry imagesetter, and Kodak Polychrome Graphics will supply Kodak DryView recording film for use with the Scitex device. The two companies are working together to finalize commercialization of the Dolev 4dry imagesetter.
Heidelberg Color Publishing Solutions (CPS) unveiled SAPHIR HiRes, a new single-pass, 42-bit color scanner employing a 10,500 pixel color CCD and offering dynamic range up to 3.6D. Heidelberg CPS and Canto Software announced that Canto's Cumulus media management solution will be bundled with the SAPHIR HiRes scanner, as well as the SAPHIR Ultra 2 scanner.
WAM!NET is now offering two new pricing programs: Value Bundles and automatic volume discounts. Through these programs, customers can achieve savings of 10 percent to 70 percent off the list prices for megabyte transmission fees, the officials said. WAM!NET also announced complete global access to its network with the shipping of its ISDN On!Ramp product and the Internet Gateway beta program, already in process.
Creo showcased a new calibration technology that enables accurate proofing of copydot files on the Heidelberg/Creo Trendsetter Spectrum and the Creo Proofsetter Spectrum digital halftone proofing devices. Creo's new calibration algorithm allows customers to alter the tonal curves of copydot data.
Agfa introduced the AiiS integrated image server, and also announced the launch of the AgfaJet RIP server and the availability of Agfa's P971 thermal plate to coincide with deliveries of its Galileo thermal CTP system. The P971 is a 1,064nm thermal plate featuring no prebake or postbake processing for run lengths up to 100,000 impressions. Agfa also announced the AgfaScan XY-15 high-end CCD scanner for multi-shift use in high-production environments.
At the Kodak Polychrome Graphics booth, the focus was on the launch of Kodak DryView recording film. DryView is a hard dot, negative acting, infrared sensitive, heat-developed film that uses a heat stable polyester base for dimensional stability.
By Marie Ranoia Alonso
