HP has also enhanced the colour management software on both Pureprint’s new and upgraded presses to further improve their consistency, repeatability and colour profiling.
The installation of the new 12000 and all of the upgrade work has started at the company’s Uckfield, East Sussex production site and is due to be completed by the end of January.
Pureprint had become the first UK business to add high-definition writing heads to an existing 12000 early last year, in a planned field upgrade that was originally discussed when the press was first installed in 2016.
The HD heads double the print resolution and achieve higher image smoothness, which HP claims surpasses offset quality by printing 1,600dpi with high lpi screen sets up to 290lpi. The high-definition imaging system uses an additional 12 laser beams to achieve the higher resolution.
With one of the company’s two existing 10000s being upgraded to a 12000 and the other being replaced by the newly installed 12000, Pureprint’s Indigo fleet will now consist of three 12000s and three 7800s.
Pureprint Group chief executive Mark Handford said: “Since the first HP 12000 press came in we have experienced higher levels of productivity and our customers looking for fine art and photographic quality have also been really impressed with the higher resolution that we are able to offer them.”
He added the company’s ability to print high quality variable content work in quantities from one to one million on tight schedules “is generating some great new business for us”.
Pureprint director Richard Owers added: “We find that the finest quality on digital and on litho are matched on our end. So, therefore, the defining thing between digital and litho is not the type of quality that somebody is hoping for, but rather the run length and whether it is fixed or variable content.
“To have the highest quality imaging and also being able to have variable content is a really powerful combination at a time when people are rediscovering direct mail. High quality, targeted direct mail is growing and that’s where the digital HD 12000 press really fits in.”
A triple winner at the PrintWeek Awards in October, Pureprint last year took on four members of staff and 15 post-press machines following the collapse of Chessington-based Barwell Print Finishers.
The business, which turns over more than £58m and employs over 400 staff, has invested more than £20m in new kit over the past five years.
