The Advanced Color Quality Suite (ACQS) is a colour management tool for advanced profiling, automated calibration and spot colour calibration, including Pantone colours.

Advanced profiling makes it possible to calibrate DocuColors to match other machines and targets such as ISO 12647.

"It's a real fillip to colour consistency and reliability," said Xerox iGen and DocuColor marketing manager Kevin O'Donnell.

ACQS uses a built-in spectrophotometer and is claimed to be quicker and more reliable than manual colour calibration, increasing system uptime.

It is based on technology Xerox developed for its flagship iGen4 machine, and which it has already made available for the iGen3.

The inline spectrophotometer makes it possible to introduce closed-loop colour control on a digital press.

The user can select a delta E tolerance that will cause the machine to stop if it falls outside the tolerance range and automatically recalibrate to ensure colour consistency.

It is an option for DocuColor 7/8000AP presses with Xerox's FreeFlow PrintServer 7.0 front end and can be retrofitted to machines in the field. ACQS costs £12,170.

Xerox's second image-enhancing technology is called variable gloss management and can be used with the DocuColor 5000 and 7/8000 machines with Creo, EFI and Xerox front ends.

O'Donnell described the technology as being profiles that determine the thickness of toner laid down in the shadow areas of an image to control the glossiness, something which he said was akin to the use of UCR and GCR to reduce ink weights in offset print.

"Some customers love that glossy, punchy look and others hate it," he said. "This gives you a choice, if you want punch you can have gloss or you can run flat."

He added that the technology was only available for these machines and that the different imaging technology used in the iGens meant the results "run flatter anyway".