Digital printing used to be a bit of a limited exercise. Paper stocks were restricted in sizes and types of coating, resolutions were low, colour gamuts were small and halftones were unspeakable. But in the past five years, quality has improved out of all recognition. While it’s still not matching offset, digital print is now vastly different from the instantly recognisable days of shiny one-bit text on uncoated 80gsm stock.
And good print quality is now penetrating all corners of the digital market. Canon’s new imagePress C1 – an entry-level machine with a top colour output speed of just 14 simplex pages per minute (ppm) – is a good illustration of this. Since its launch in November last year, more than 500 C1s have been sold across Europe, with 80 of those being in the UK. Ben Milford, head of marketing for the professional division of Canon Business Solutions, puts this down to image quality. “If you look closely, you can still tell it apart from offset, but quite honestly many end-users wouldn’t notice,” he says. Its specification puts the C1 in a category without immediate equivalents: its output speed puts it in the office colour copier bracket, but its quality would challenge the top production-orientated digital presses.
Successive upgrades
The C1 is the first of Canon’s new imagePress engines, and it has a raft of new features, all tending towards the goal of top print quality, that will be rolled out in successive engines. The first of these is the production-level imagePress C7000VP, which will begin shipping in July.
The C1 uses Canon’s V-Toner, where the ‘V’ stands for ‘vivid’, and is so named for its ability to reproduce Canon’s widest-ever colour gamut – a greater gamut than a standard four-colour offset press, according to product manager Peter Daniels. The particle, Canon’s smallest yet, is encased in wax – a hybrid development between the wax-based toner of the old CLC range, and the polymer toner of the new CLC range. During the fusing stage, the wax is melted and the toner particle fixed to the page using a small amount of pressure. The greater colour gamut comes from the fact that the toner is a degree more transparent than previous toners, and can be blended more easily with other colours.
The new V-Toner also overcomes a problem traditional to digital print engines – the print they produce always has a glossy finish, due to the oil used in the fusing process. The imagePress series uses an oil-less fusing process. The benefit, as Daniels explains, is that if the job is a short run to complement something produced by a litho press, there’s more chance of it looking and feeling similar to the offset product. “It’s useful for proofing too, where you don’t want a high level of gloss,” he says. C1 users who go on to bind their work are also likely to raise a cheer for the oil-less fusing process. Oil-fused pages are notoriously hard to bind, because the oil effectively makes the glue less sticky. Output from the imagePress series of engines should be easier to put through an adhesive binder with lasting results.
One appealing aspect of the imagePress series is its T-Developer, a complex chemical confection that works together with the V-Toner to eradicate the noticeable edges where the toner is laid down on the sheet. Daniels explains: “Toner is a thick layer compared with offset ink, and you notice where it begins and ends. The T-Developer uses electrostatic charging to smooth the edges, so it’s less noticeable.”
Another key technology development sported by the C1, and to be rolled out on all the imagePress engines, is the E-Drum. ‘E’ (which stands for ‘excellent’) denotes the fact that the imaging drum is coated in an extremely tough compound that has the benefit of degrading – as do the coatings on all digital press imaging drums – all at once, rather than gradually over time, as with other drums. “With other coatings, you get a gradual decay of colour, registration and placement over the life of the drum,” Daniels says. “The E-Drum gives consistent image quality over a longer period of time – around half as long again as the drums used in our CLC series. And when it does start to degrade, it goes very, very quickly, so the decayed image is immediately apparent, and the operator can replace the drum straight away.”
Image transfer belt
The imagePress C1 also strikes a blow for digital presses’ versatility with stocks by employing some new Canon technology known as an ‘advanced image transfer belt’. It’s basically a section of elastic inserted in the belt that allows it to conform closely to the surface texture of the stock it’s imaging onto. This, coupled with the lesser amount of pressure exerted in the fusing section, means that the C1 can print onto “fairly” heavily textured stocks, says Daniels, without either “blotching” the toner or ironing them smooth.
Accordingly, the range of stocks that the C1 can handle is relatively wide, and includes transparencies, some self-adhesive label stocks, coated papers and textured stocks such as hammered and linen finishes. An ongoing Canon programme is accrediting stocks and creating a media profile for each accredited stock, which can then be uploaded to the C1’s media library. The profile also incorporates a white point, meaning that an off-white paper can be printed with the same Pantone shades as a brilliant white – the ink mix is adjusted accordingly to compensate.
Front-end options
As from this month, C1 users are able to choose their front-end. The standard controller had been an EFI device known as ‘imagePress Server Q1’, which ships with GretagMacbeth’s Eye One colour management system. Now, Canon also offers the Server T1, a scaled-down device for less data-intensive environments. Both servers are geared to interface with standard variable data preparation packages, and both will optimise image usage by scanning a job and storing repeated image elements for call-off on the requisite pages, “rather than sending each page complete with the image every time,” explains Daniels.
Milford says the imagePress C1 is being bought not just by traditional graphic arts providers, but also copyshops, new start-ups and printers adding digital to their offset line-up, often into interesting new markets such as advertising. He adds: “They’re using it to proof their designs, but also to add revenue streams to their operations with the variable-data options and the short-run capacity.”
SPECIFICATIONS
Max speed
• 14ppm A4 simplex (colour 64-105gsm)
• 60ppm A4 simplex (black and white 64-105gsm)
Resolution 72dpi min to 1,200dpi max
Stock weight range
• Coated 105 – 256gsm
• Uncoated 64 – 256gsm
Max sheet size 330x482mm
Price Engine with Q1 Controller Eye One colour management and saddlestitcher finisher: £46,000
Contact Canon UK 01737 220000 www.canon.com
THE ALTERNATIVES
Xerox Docucolor 3535
Bridging the gap between office and production environments, it has a speed of 35ppm and five paper trays that take between 60 and 110gsm, and a choice of three RIPs, including EFI Fiery for larger files, Splash for colour management or Creo’s Spire for print-on-demand applications.
Max speed 35ppm A4 simplex
Resolution 200dpi min to 600dpi max
Stock weight range 60–110gsm
Max sheet size 330x482mm
Price £32,000
Contact Xerox UK 0870 900 5500 www.office.xerox.com
HP Indigo s2000
Mainly producing plastic credit-type cards, the machine also has huge substrate flexibility. It uses liquid ElectroInks, rather than toners, and there’s the option of six-colour printing (including orange and violet). Variable information comes via Yours Truly, a full-colour personalisation option built into the RIP.
Max speed 16ppm A4 simplex
Resolution 800x800dpi min; 800x2,400dpi max
Stock weight range 250–600gsm
Max sheet size 320x464mm
Price £139,000 including RIP
Contact HP 0845 270 4222 www.hp.com/go/indigo
Konica Minolta BizHub C252
Front end is the KM Emperon controller, and toner is the new Simitri polymer-based fine formula. It has four multi-purpose paper cassettes, plus an ‘intelligent’ manual bypass. Inline finishing includes stapling and punching.
Max speed 25ppm A4 simplex
Resolution 1,800x600dpi
Stock weight range 60–256gsm
Max sheet size 304x457mm
Price £7,995 including Emperon RIP
Contact Konica Minolta 01908 200400 www.bizhub.biz
Océ Imagistics CM2525
Placed in the office/multifunctional range with a top print speed of 25ppm, four paper cassettes mean there’s some flexibility in print stocks. It offers an EFI Fiery alternative for heavier throughput and colour-managed environments.
Max speed 25ppm A4 simplex
Resolution 600x1,800dpi max
Stock weight range 64–256gsm
Max sheet size 311x457mm
Price £8,995 including RIP
Contact Ocè 0845 600 5544 www.oce.co.uk
