Digital presses come in many flavors: the wide-format varieties seen at the SGIA screen printing show this month; the roll-fed label machines seen at LabelExpo last month; and web and sheetfed varieties normally associated with commercial markets. All three species are on the floor at Graph Expo this month. EFI, for instance, is showing its newly launched Jetrion 4000, a UV-ink digital label press that opens a window for commercial offset shops to move relatively easily into the label market.. The press is distributed nationally by Pitman.

Workflows to drive digital presses have received serious attention in the past year. Unified workflows by EFI and Kodak, and OEM workflows from Press-sense and are among popular solutions driving many popular models.

Here's just a taste of what is at Graph Expo, with more online at graphicartsonline.com/graphexpo. HP is showing the Indigo 7000 digital press, with color workflow solutions from EskoArtwork. Since it debuted at drupa, more than 100 of the 7000s have been sold. It prints 120 4-color, letter-sized pages per minute. Re-engineered from its predecessor Indigos, HP positions the 7000 with increasing fervor as a short-run ( as in “thousands of copies”) color press—as well as a variable print machine. HP has adapted Esko workflow to manage color on these presses.

The Kodak NexPress S2500 digital production color press is being shown. The 83 A4/letter images per minute features a fifth imaging unit, with capabilities and on-site upgradeability. Kodak is promoting an Intelligent Dimensional Coating and Dimensional Clear Dry Ink for water-marking, glossing, protection coating, color gamut expansion and MICR applications. A near-line glossing unit can add a high-gloss finish for achieving higher impact from images and provides additional surface protection. Also featured at Kodak's booth is the Versamark VL2000 inkjet web, which is designed for data centers and transpromo print volumes of more than 1 million images per month. It operates at a maximum production capacity of 1,090 letter-size impressions per minute.

Océ North American is showing its ColorStream 10000 digital continuous-feed, full-color press. Running 172-dpi, full-process color output, it uses CustomTone toner and a dot modulation feature for crisp graphics and smooth gradations for illustrations and photos, whether color or black and white. Handling a wide range of media—from onionskin, to newspaper, to heavy and glossy stock—it differentiates full color pages from monochrome, running faster for black and white, and billing the user less for them.

Xeikon is showing its fastest web-fed digital color press, the model 8000, rated at 230 8.27×11.69´´ prints per minute at 1200 dpi. The company showed its new model 3300 label press last month at LabelExpo.

A number of new, mid-range digital color presses—the 70- to 90-ppm variety—have been launched since last Graph Expo, such as Ricoh's C900, the Xerox 700 (see p.10) and offerings from Canon, Kodak and Konica Minolta on the floor.

Ricoh America is launching the Pro C900, outputting at 90 ipm on all rated stocks, with a per-print cost of under 6¢ for an 11×17´´ simplex color page and a 1¢ for an 11×17´´ simplex black-and-white page. The duty cycle is 400,000 impressions per month. It supports stocks from 13-lb. bond to 110-lb. cover—and does not slow down when printing heavy stock. It features a specially developed, built-in EFI Fiery controller driving it to 1200-dpi image resolution. Color density change remains below 0.1, and registration holds at ± 0.5 mm.