Bubbles of Invention

Legend has it that thermal ink-jet technology arrived by accident in 1977 when a Canon researcher inadvertently touched an ink-filled syringe with a hot soldering iron. An air bubble formed, then the bubble burst and ink spurted out of the syringe—a spontaneous foreshadowing of how ink-jet printers would perform as tools in the graphic arts industry.

These days, computer-controlled printheads fire ink droplets from their nozzles in microseconds to form images and text on a wide variety of media ranging from carpets for Las Vegas casinos to canvases for reproductions of paintings, and at a fraction of the cost it takes for jobs to be output on conventional presses.

Clearly, impulse or drop-on-demand ink-jet printers (which include those powered by piezoelectric technology) have come a long way from their humble beginnings as desktop devices spitting out smeared computer-generated copy in homes and small offices.

Indeed, some industry gurus say that ink-jet technology is at the forefront of moving the industry from analog to digital printing, and will soon challenge or at least complement offset.

"Ink-jet output has the broadest range of printing applications of any technology that I know," says Dr. Ross Mills, president of Imaging Technology International.

"It's versatile, deceptively simple, and cost effective. It's moved beyond what used to be a crude technology and into the mainstream, and is used for everything from photographs to milk cartons. The large-format devices can print posters," says Mills, who serves as co-chairman of the 10th Annual Ink Jet Printing Conference, held last month in Scottsdale, Ariz. "The most lucrative markets haven't been developed as yet, but it's going to be the dominant technology because it is cost effective."

Mark Hanley, president of ink-jet research consultancy I.T. Strategies, says the projection for the worldwide ink-jet market will approach $31 billion by 2004, a $10 billion increase over 1999. Hanley adds that the traditional graphic arts realm still dominated by offset, screen, flexographic, and other mainstream printers doesn't even include what the improved ink-jet technology can do with media like wall coverings and decorative laminates.

For now, though, Hanley says that the "biggest opportunity" in ink-jet output lies in wide-format posters and proofing.

"Ink jet has become a cheap available technology, enabling many more people to use it for a final proof," he says. "Years ago, a contract proof was the last thing a printer did before signing off for the customer, and it was slow and expensive to produce. Today there are much cheaper ink-jet printers on the market to handle proofs, where commercial printers can simply press a button for output. They're doing many more early proofs via ink-jet technology because it's cheaper, easier, and faster."

Another burgeoning opportunity for ink-jet printers is in the reproduction of drawings, fine art, and photography, a niche market that many knowledgeable sources say was first established by Iris, a company that is now part of CreoScitex America.

Iris originally had marketed its continuous ink-jet printers as proofing devices until the mid-1990s, when artists began using the company's large-format machines to reproduce fine art "and we saw another market out there," recalls Mark Vanover, product marketing director for CreoScitex America.

Says Vanover, a couple of years ago Iris discontinued production of its 3047 ink-jet printer, which had been geared towards the fine arts market, and again concentrated on its ink-jet proofers because "the market was beginning to be proliferated by lower-cost drop-on-demand ink-jet printers from Epson and [MacDermid] ColorSpan."

Vanover says he doubts that ink-jet printers will supplant offset printing any time soon or at all "because they're still too slow. It takes about 45 minutes to make a print. If you want 100,000 copies, you're not going to go to an Epson. You'll go to offset."

Regardless, major ink-jet manufacturers—including Agfa, Canon, Encad, Epson, and Hewlett-Packard (HP)—are aggressively promoting new wide-format products for short runs that are designed to meet the needs of in-house corporate, print-for-pay, graphics, and engineering professional users, offering advances in inks, resolution enhancement, speed, and print durability.

For this market, some printers employ piezoelectric ink-jet technology, in which an electrically stimulated crystal changes shape, applying pressure on the ink chamber to force ink droplets out of the nozzles. Thermal is the far more widely used technology, while piezoelectric is described as slower but more precise.

Manufacturers of piezoelectric printheads include Spectra Inc., which last month appointed an agent in Japan; and Epson, sponsor of a recent traveling ink-jet-printed photography show called "Epson's America in Detail."

Says Epson senior product manager Mark Radogna, "Our technology offers a new level of sophistication in placing dots on paper. We've been able to manufacture a line of ink-jet printers that resolves most of the problems surrounding color stability, accuracy, and brightness."

According to Radogna, professional photographic studios, fine art printers, sign shops, and service bureaus are among the potential customers looking at ink-jet printing as the technology of choice for "a high level of image quality and permanence. Everything you will print can last up to 200 years," he says, adding that Epson's new six-color printer, the 44"-wide Epson Stylus Pro 10000 introduced in April, can print up to 231 square feet per hour at photographic-quality levels.

Radogna says that images produced by the new printer reach a true resolution of 1,440x720 dpi, and can be printed on a wide array of media up to 1.5 mm thick. The device costs $9,995, not including an optional Fiery Spark RIP.

Through a licensing deal, Roland DGA uses Epson printheads in its new ink-jet printer, the Hi-Fi Jet Pro FJ-600, an eight-color 64"-wide device introduced in March as the third in a series of large-format printers licensed by Pantone Hexachrome. It simulates 97% of Pantone Matching System colors.

"Instead of mixing and matching colors with the same sizes of inks, our RIP is able to choose between different picoliters of droplets, and it combines them to offer more hues—an almost infinite amount of colors," says Roland DGA senior marketing manager Patrick Kersey.

The printer, which is priced at $20,995, can produce output for exhibits, posters, and backlit displays with Roland's chromatic pigment inks at 1,440x1,440-dpi resolutions.

For faster throughput up to 127 square feet per hour, it can be loaded with two sets of CMYK inks, reflecting an ink-jet technology that is "leap years ahead of what it was five or six years ago," states Kersey. "This is changing the way the art world views reproduction. Today there are digital artists whose original prints are now digital prints. They never paint or photograph anything—they make the original on the computer.

"With ink-jet printers," he continues, "an artist can print limited editions of any size, even just one or two pieces. With lithographic and seriographic printers, that would be cost-prohibitive because artists would have to have 500 prints minimum."

HP, which also claims to have invented thermal ink-jet technology in 1979, boasts of quality reproductions aimed at the poster and fine arts markets. "Our ink-jet devices print drawings and photographs that have life-like quality," says Frank Drogo, research and development (R&D) section manager for HP, referring to the company's six-color Designjet 5000 series that began shipping last October in 42" and 60" sizes.

Both models feature output resolutions of 1,200x600 dpi, and come with or without an Adobe PostScript RIP. The machines are capable of print modes ranging from 72 square feet per hour (high-quality mode) to 569 square feet per hour. The 42" model lists for $9,000, while the 60" model, which includes UV inks suitable for outdoor signage, ranges near $19,000, according to HP R&D associate Jaren Marler.

HP also manufactures thermal ink-jet printers for MacDermid ColorSpan, Inc., which, along with Encad, is generally credited with advancing the use of large-format color devices for fine art and poster reproduction and signage.

During the recent DPI 2001 event, ColorSpan introduced its newest high-speed wide-format color ink-jet printer, the DisplayMaker Mach 12. According to the company, the 72"-wide device, priced at $29,995, can print at 400 square feet per hour using 12 next-generation 600-dpi printheads. It also can be configured with one or more four-, six-, eight-, or 12-color ink sets, and can achieve "fine art" 1,800-dpi resolution at output speeds up to 50 square feet per hour.

"It's a top-of-the-line product aimed at photo labs, fine art reproduction, printing on canvases, and backlit signs for bus stops," notes ColorSpan director of product marketing Bruce Butler. "It's designed for those already in the wide-format business but looking to upgrade."

Encad, founded in 1981, once manufactured 34" printers for the computer-aided design market but has evolved into a predominately graphic arts supplier with its 600-dpi ink-jet printers, inks, and media, says Mark Broschart, manager of Encad's imaging systems and products group.

He notes that recent customers have included "visionaries" at a large grocery chain in Europe that set up ink-jet printers in every store to produce sign-age.

The directional signage for the Super Bowl in Tampa, Fla. was printed on Encad's eight-color Novajet 850, which comes in 42" ($12,495) and 60" ($17,495) sizes. Both models contain eight cartridges manufactured by Lexmark and two paper spindles "so that if one roll's out of paper, the other kicks in," says Broschart. "You can print with multiple media, and switch back and forth. Output speed for the Novajet 850, which also has an automatic cutting device, is 92 square feet an hour at high resolution."

In addition to its own brand, Encad also supplies Océ with eight printheads for the latter's new CS5090 large-format color device, available in 42" or 60" widths. Cindy Pilch, regional sales manager and former product manager for Océ, which also announced in April the release of its Posterizer software, says the printer is part of her company's turnkey system.

Says Pilch, the CS5090 offers customers a bundle deal, which includes a large color scanner and color RIP for about $50,000, or a choice to make separate purchases.

"Currently, our target markets are high-productivity services bureaus and corporate accounts," Pilch says. "A huge market is trade show exhibitors that want banners hanging from the ceiling and signage on floors."

Canon, which concentrates on ink-jet printers for home and office use, entered the wide-format market in 1999 after a decade of selling such devices through its subsidiaries, according to Amit Bagchi, the company's director of marketing for wide-format products. He notes that the Canon BJ-W7000, a 36"-wide printer retailing for $6,995 and the 42" BJ-W9000, priced at $11,995, are aimed at graphic arts customers and tap the proofing markets as well.

Says Bagchi, "Our parent company saw the market growing to such an extent in the second half of l999 that it decided to enter it with the Canon brand name instead of as a supplier."