New color management and color correction systems introduced at the Print 05 & Converting 05 expo offer proof of the continuing rise of digital printing technology.CHICAGO—New color management and color correction systems introduced at the
Print 05 & Converting 05 expo here offered proof of the continuing rise of digital printing technology. The new products targeted a variety of color workflows.
Seattle-based Chromix demonstrated at the show its ColorCast technology, a color simulation and modeling technology used with ICC profiles. The technology lets customers transform ICC profiles and then embed them into normal ICC device profiles. This results in profiles usable with any ICC-compatible system, the company said.
For example, ColorCast transformations improve the proofing in six- or eight-color printing workflows even when image editing and layout applications don't provide native support for the additional colors.
"As a result, soft and hard proofing of multicolor and abstract profiles is now available on any application, print driver or RIP that supports ICC profiles," Chromix President Steve Upton said.
Color matching vendor Pantone Inc., of Carlstadt, N.J., used the show to debut a new hardware color matching system, called Color Cue 2. The $349 battery-powered device measures a color and provides users with the closest selection from the company's library of coated, uncoated and matte paper stocks as well as selections from its textile color library. The Color Cue 2 also provides related lighter and darker colors automatically.
Developer Integrated Color Solutions Inc., of New York, demonstrated the latest version of its Remote Director monitor-based remote proofing system at the show. Version 3.1 now provides a new API for custom development and provides a number of new tools such as compare and spot-color blending, the company said.
Integrated Color Solutions also announced that it had reached a deal with Pantone to support the Pantone Color System within Remote Director.
Electronics for Imaging Inc., of Foster City, Calif., demonstrated its Fiery System 7 software, which optimizes Fiery Q and S series RIP servers. The company said the result was levels of digital printing performance and image quality.
"The software was created for printing service providers who face the perennial challenge of increasingly shorter lead times for producing ever more complex documents," said Mehran Farimani, vice president and general manager of Fiery products at EFI.
The developer of the Photo-D image correction software, KlearVision Digital Ltd., debuted a new version at the show. The software uses "fuzzy logic" artificial intelligence and has been enhanced specifically for the graphics arts industry. The update features ICC support, as well as improved IU and faster processing, the company said.
"We're taking graphic arts workflows to the next level," said Moshe Keydar, founder and president of KlearVision, "with automatic correction and optimization of photographic image content for high-quality, color reproduction."
Next Page: Digital printing gains.
At conference keynote sessions, industry watchers said that digital printing technology continues to make gains and predicting the market to grow by about 20 percent during the next three years.
"Printers are no longer asking, 'Should I buy digital?'" said Frank Romano, emeritus professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology. "They're now asking, 'Which one should I buy?'"
Romano noted that just five years ago, digital printing was only a "tiny portion" of all print volume. By 2010, digital printing should account for 35 percent of the industry's total volume, Romano said. "The total number of digital printing systems in use in the U.S. exceeded 17,000 in 2004, roughly double the number of active systems only two years before."
The industry—though now growing in terms of revenues—is undergoing what economist Andrew Paparozzi called "structural change." Paparozzi, the chief economist of the National Association for Printing Leadership, said the structural change is coming from several sources, including overseas rivals. But the new digital technologies themselves are a primary change agent.
"Structural change is redefining our industry, redefining communications options and preferences," Paparozzi said. The next economic era in printing will have zero tolerance for inefficiency, spoilage, waste or even error, he warned.
"Printers will be challenged to automate, maximize employee productivity, and excel at employee recruitment and evaluation," Paparozzi added.
Diversification will also be a driver of growth. The packaging industry, for example, is seen as the largest growth niche market for printers between now and 2010, said Romano.
"More tags and labels are printed by commercial printers than by converters," said Romano. "Almost as much folding carton printing is done by commercial printers as by converters."
Market share for the different kinds of printing processes—digital, litho, flexo and gravure—will change dramatically in the coming years, Romano predicted. "Litho stands to lose some packaging business to flexography and some promotional printing to digital, while gaining publication volume from the gravure sector," said Romano.
Meanwhile, an increasingly larger share of printers' future business will come from services. Last year, revenue from the industry was $163 billion, but a major share of that came from services, said William "Kip" Smythe, vice president of NPES, the Association of Suppliers of Printing, Publishing, and Converting Technologies. "The print portion of printers' revenues has actually been declining for several years now," he said.
Non-print services accounted for about 8.2 percent of total industry revenues last year, up from 7.3 percent the prior year. That should increase to 16.7 percent by 2010.
"These developments mean that printers must be more innovative and take a broader view of their businesses," said Smythe. "Leading commercial printers are reassessing their entire range of products and services, looking for opportunities to unbundle services—and charge for services they previously performed for free."
Emerging technologies, such as on-demand and variable printing, new flexo technologies, wide-format inkjet printing, and fulfillment services are among the areas that printers are exploring to boost revenues, he said.
While the industry had lost 5,900 firms since 1998, it is now in an upturn, for which companies must now prepare, Paparozzi said.
"There are plenty of ways to succeed in this industry, and there is plenty of success to be had," Paparozzi said. "But success must be by design, and not by accident. There's a big difference between diversifying, and diversifying profitably."
