Eastman Kodak

As visitors enter the lobby of Westland Printers, they're stunned by a riot of color. The commercial custom printer displays samples of its work on two full walls. There's no missing the fact that Westland prints sophisticated multicolor brochures, many of which feature diecut and embossed covers produced on-site. Despite the complexity of the work, when Westland Printers accepts jobs these days, it's with the understanding that they'll be out the door within a week. Typically, the Burtonsville, MD, family-owned printer has between seven and 10 working days to turn a job around. And, points out company President Barbara Westland, that type of delivery is

As visitors enter the lobby of Westland Printers, they're stunned by a riot of color. The commercial custom printer displays samples of its work on two full walls. There's no missing the fact that Westland prints sophisticated multicolor brochures, many of which feature diecut and embossed covers produced on-site. Despite the complexity of the work, when Westland Printers accepts jobs these days, it's with the understanding that they'll be out the door within a week. Typically, the Burtonsville, MD, family-owned printer has between seven and 10 working days to turn a job around. And, points out company President Barbara Westland, that type of delivery is

At Graph Expo and Converting Expo later this month, Kodak Polychrome Graphics—the joint venture of Eastman Kodak and Sun Chemical—will showcase a new product, its first major launch since the company's inception. The device is the Kodak Approval XP4 digital halftone proofer. Recently, Jeff Jacobson, president of Kodak Polychrome Graphics, U.S. and Canada, met with Printing Impressions to share his thoughts on the company's aggressive positioning in the digital halftone proofing market, the direction the now-established joint venture is heading from a technology and marketing standpoint, and why he absolutely can't tolerate the annoying acronym that often plagues this young company. BY MARIE RANOIA ALONSO Getting

COMMACK, NY—While some printers are getting into prepress services, Spectragraphic Inc., headquartered here, is expanding beyond prepress services into sheetfed offset printing. "We realized that as the printing industry moved to all-digital workflows, we needed to make decisions on technology—both for now and in the future," comments Geoffrey Gough, co-founder and executive vice president. One such decision included the recent purchase of a new six-color, 40˝ Mitsubishi 3F press and a multimillion-dollar investment in Spectragraphic's imaging studio. This included the installation of fiber optic networks, the latest Silicon Graphics workstations. Currently in its 21st year of operation, Spectragraphic claims to have been among its

BY MARIE RANOIA ALONSO Remote proofing may be the ultimate form of collaboration between client and printer—each reviewing a proof rendered at separate locations, thanks to technological advances in color management software, digital proofing devices and digital file delivery services. The benefits of adding remote proofing to a printing organization—outputting less film, buying less chemicals, avoiding shipping costs and time-consuming review periods—seem to position remote proofing as the logical direction for the contract proofing process. So why aren't more prepress firms and commercial printing organizations rushing to add a digital proofer and team that digital proofing device with digital file transfer

Selling printing has always been a challenge, but never more so than today. Not only is there significant competition in every market segment, but arcane issues such as gamut limitations and color reproduction can make the press sheet seem like a compromise compared to the proof. COMPANY PROFILEName: McCord PrintingLocation: DallasEmployees: 90Annual Sales: $13 millionKey Markets: Advertising agencies, corporate work.One commercial printer has found a solution to this problem: going direct-to-plate. McCord Printing installed an Agfa Galileo computer-to-plate (CTP) system. "We no longer have to sell 'down' from the proof or tell the customer that's as close as we can get to the proof," explains Mickey

BY MARIE RANOIA ALONSO As the platesetter market matures, more fully automated and semiautomated devices, perhaps more than the market can sustain, are redefining the role of platemaking to meet the demands of the CTP environment. Thermal imaging technology, functionality to support Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF) and PostScript 3 availability now join reliability and throughput as inherent traits of many of today's new platesetter launches. To prepare for new platesetter launches on the horizon later this year, Printing Impressions offers a portfolio of devices and checks in with the technology providers poised to take them to market. Whether plug-and-play platesetting solutions, thermal

NORWALK, CT—Further tightening its grip on the markets it hopes to dominate, Kodak Polychrome Graphics, confirming months of speculation, has reached an agreement to acquire Horsell Anitec, a supplier of graphic arts films, plates and paper products. Horsell Anitec is owned by International Paper and operates as part of its Imaging Products Division. The acquisition will include Horsell Anitec's sales, marketing, distribution, research and development, and manufacturing operations, including production facilities in Binghamton, NY, and Holyoke, MA, as well as plants in Europe. Approximately 1,800 Horsell Anitec employees will become Kodak Polychrome employees (Kodak Polychrome already has more than 2,600 employees). No announcement

BY A.L. RUSLAVAGE Behold the phenomenal world of color, where choices of tones, hues, shades and textures can make or break an image. Ask any prepress manager: The right combination of colors creates realism—eliciting strong responses and emotions from the people viewing the picture. Digital cameras help make this realistic imagery a realistic goal. Prepress departments equipped with digital cameras can now fine-tune the color quality of an image—all before the photograph goes to paper. Today, technology innovators continue to enhance the color performance parameters of their digital cameras. Undeniably, color management is a crucial issue for manufacturers. Printing Impressions asked the experts to give their perspectives

BY MARIE RANOIA ALONSO The mere mention of color management and the status of color consistency in today's graphic arts industry rarely results in a black-and-white discussion. Color delivery in the entire design and production phase, from digital camera to high-end scanner to digital proofer or on-demand printer, is mission-one critical. What better way to get a read on today's color concerns than to poll the minds of the industry? The question Printing Impressions posed was simple, but comprehensive: Where are we today in color management and color manipulation and what do we, as an industry, need to do to improve our color