Epson America

Commercial printing industry national news, featuring items on Clermont Printing & Office Supplies and Olympus Group.

The largest part of the investment is a Komori six-color plus aqueous coating 40" printing press, featuring a closed-loop production workflow. The company also upgraded its electronic prepress workflow and is in the final stages of a redesign of its offices.

Drupa 2008 has claim to the label, but calling this the Inkjet Graph Expo was even more apt because the technology accounted for much of the printing equipment running on the show floor. That's, of course, factoring in the large number of wide- and superwide/grand-format inkjet printers on display.

Those lithographic printers walking the show floor earlier this month at Graph Expo in search of a bevy of heavy-iron, offset presses were sorely disappointed. With press manufacturers Heidelberg USA, Komori America and Mitsubishi Lithographic Presses opting to pass on this year's show, the South Hall at McCormick Place lacked the all-encompassing lineup of traditional press vendors that visitors in years past have come to expect.

“It is very important that we are producing consistent, calibrated contract color proofs. This new system has in-line spectrophotometers to check every proof," said Greg Konke, prepress manager. Lange still maintains a Fujifilm FinalProofer in its prepress department for customers who prefer a proof that uses dots.

Putting greater emphasis on applications and business development tools has been a growing trend among trade show exhibitors.

Called VIM-JT Direct Plate, the CTP technology provides small- and medium-sized printers with an affordable solution that streamlines their offset printing workflows to make printing more profitable.

xpedx spent this year expanding its offerings with the equipment and services North American printers have asked for. It’s all going to be shown and discussed in the company’s largest-ever exhibit at PRINT 09 in Chicago, booth 1221. It also will hold a contest for printers, awarding two U.S.-based commercial and/or in-plant printers an all-expense-paid trip for two to the new xpedx Technology Center in metro Cincinnati. The two-day trip is valued at approximately $2,500 per winner.

A killer new product is one that shows consistent rapid growth in sales at a level that is high enough to be profitable for suppliers. The i-Pod™ which sold 300,000 in its first year turned out to be one and the Amazon Kindle™ electronic book looks like being another, with 500,000 sales in its first year.

pson America, Inc. and EFI™ (Nasdaq: EFII) have joined forces to create what both companies expect will be the most advanced and complete proofing solution on the market to date. The new Epson Stylus® Pro 900 Series Proofing Editions combine the unique proofing advantages that come with the Epson Stylus Pro 7900 or 9900 wide format ink jet printers, along with EFI’s most robust proofing RIP workflow to date, EFI Colorproof™ XF v4.0 for Epson.