Software

Cambridge software specialist ixPressia has introduced an easy-to-use stand-alone program designed to simplify the production of customised and variable data printing for display producers, designers and sign-makers. Designated ixPressionist, this innovative solution is a powerful, professional VDP package which enables individual and versioned elements, such as text, images and barcodes, to be incorporated automatically into wide-format applications as well as for a host of smaller jobs, such as labels, stickers and decals.

ixPressionist is designed to work off-line and is not reliant on a specific RIP or printer to generate data. This means that designers, print service providers and end customers can now produce variable output for signs, wide-format displays and posters, plus other applications where repeat graphics need to mix with individual elements.

As well as being ideal for today's wide-format display producers, ixPressionist is also of great value to designers and pre-press operatives who don't own a printing machine, but who want to send finished jobs, ready to RIP and output, to a third-party production house. Its easy-to-use handling of CSV test elements, combined with graphics, means that it is compliant with any printer or RIP that supports PDF input.

ixPressionist is a stand-alone Windows-based product, not a plug-in, and supports embedded RGB and CMYK colour profiles, plus industry-standard JPG, TIFF, PNG and GIF file formats. Users can design and edit high resolution graphics to contain variable data such as text, barcodes and graphics. Links can be made to external data sources, or the variable data can be generated internally, with the output being an optimised, multi-page PDF file, ready for RIPping or printing using standard drivers.

Early assessment from potential users has shown that this is the product that the industry has been waiting for in their drive to offer greater automated versatility with their digital printers. The sheer simplicity and effectiveness of ixPressionist software makes it an essential option for anyone who wants to handle VDP and customisation quickly and easily.

With extensive experience in specialist software development for print, Jim Taylor, Managing Director of ixPressia, explains: "This is a break away from our traditional industrial market. We have applied our proven high-speed variable data technology to create an easy-to-use VDP creation tool for the graphics printing market."

ixPressionist is making its international debut on stand 161 in Hall B1 at FESPA, Munich, where ixPressia will also be exhibiting its established industrial software range on the Xennia stand. The software will be available via selected distributors and resellers.

Caldera users will now be able to monitor their printing jobs on the newly launched APPLE iPad.

The CostView 2.0 solution is positioned to be the ultimate dashboard for a manager sensitive to production costs.

Fully integrated within the Caldera RIP, COSTVIEW 2.0 enables production cost management and monitoring as well as the set-up of a pricing policy. It is a production management solution which extracts information about jobs directly from the RIP spooler, enabling a production manager to control, modify, study and export all costs pertaining to a job.

With this module users can calculate all costs pertaining to a job: printing costs, finishing, shipping, machine amortization or other overhead costs.  Users can also export their job listings with all relevant costs as a spreadsheet ready for further analysis in other “csv” compliant software.

The Costview 2.0 portable solution on iPad and the full blown FLOW+ Wide Format Business Workflow Solution will be presented on the Caldera Booth N°379 Hall B1 at Fespa.

GMG, the world’s leading color management solutions provider, is pleased to announce that it will present solutions with HP for the commercial and wide-format printing segments at the HP stand AB150 in hall 12 at Ipex 2010.

“We feel confident that GMG and HP customers will be pleased with the high color accuracy and repeatability of consistent color results which can be achieved in digital printing with GMG’s highly innovative color management solutions,” says Paul Willems, CEO of GMG GmbH & Co. KG.

The solutions include ColorServer for color conversions and SmartProfiler for calibrating and profiling different output devices, such as HP Indigo digital presses or HP Scitex industrial large-format printers. GMG and HP are therefore expanding their long-standing relationship in the field of high-end contract proofing, where the GMG ColorProof proofing software has been supporting the HP Designjet Z-Series wide-format printers from the outset.

The combination of GMG SmartProfiler and GMG ColorSever helps users of HP digital presses and wide-format printers easily meet their customers’ increasing expectations for high color accuracy, repeatability and colors that match those of print media produced by conventional offset printing processes. The solutions also benefit companies that have several similar or identical output devices installed. In these cases, distributed color management on each front-end results in different color rendering on the individual printing systems. With centrally controlled color management using GMG SmartProfiler and GMG ColorServer, companies can greatly increase productivity, improve production reliability and achieve identical quality of printed output.

“GMG SmartProfiler and GMG ColorServer enable us to easily create color profiles and calibrations for different output devices and substrates,” says Gunther Fells, Head of the Digital Printing department at KL Druck, Germany. “The high-quality color conversions offered by GMG ColorServer optimally convert colors, including spot colors, into the color space of the required output devices. Since we have been using GMG color management technology with several of our HP Scitex printers, we have been able to achieve repeatable and identical print quality on every printing system and substrate in our portfolio, which otherwise is a very difficult and time consuming production process.”

Recently, GMG successfully passed the FograCert Validation Printing System certification for the HP Indigo press 5500 and the HP Indigo 7000 Digital Press using the GMG ColorServer color management solution for the coated substrates Digi Gold Matt and Digi Gold Gloss from Papyrus/Schneidersoehne. The certification was achieved at HP in Boeblingen, Germany. In addition, IDEAlliance SWOP® (Specifications for Web Offset Publications) and GRACoL® (General Requirements and Applications for Commercial Offset Lithography) certifications have been granted to GMG ColorServer for the HP Indigo press 5500/5000 and the HP Indigo 7000 Digital Press.

“We are delighted to further strengthen our collaboration with HP as the de-facto market leader in the digital printing market. But we are even more satisfied that HP customers can confidently take advantage of the well-known GMG color management technology, which will impact both companies’ technology leadership in this fast growing segment. Our common customers will certainly be very impressed by the high accuracy and repeatability of colors as well as by gaining more flexibility, with consistent print quality on different output devices, enabling users to select the printing process at the last minute”, says Paul Willems, CEO of GMG GmbH & Co. KG.

“Based on use cases between HP Scitex customers and GMG, we are pleased to report that testing was successful and customers can maximize the performance of their printing systems with the combination of these two solutions. GMG provides innovative technology for high-quality color management in mixed production environments covering a wide range of HP commercial and wide-format output devices,” adds Eli Israeli, Strategic Marketing, HP Scitex Division.

 

GMG, the world’s leading color management solutions provider, and Mimaki, a leading manufacturer of wide-format inkjet printers and cutting machines for the sign/graphics, textile/apparel and industrial markets are pleased to announce a worldwide strategic partnership providing highly innovative solutions for high value packaging applications.

The common solutions, comprising the inkjet printer range from Mimaki, GMG ColorServer 4.6.2 color management software for fully automatic color conversions and GMG SmartProfiler for printer calibration and profiling, allows to digitally produce consistent and accurate color results on virtually any material.

GMG ColorServer in combination with the Mimaki printers is a valuable solution for all kinds of businesses engaged in flexible packaging, compound board packages or tin printing, e.g. print houses, prepress companies, agencies and brand owners. The core applications of this solution are:

• color-accurate digital proofing on original substrates used for production – with white ink and varnish support,
• digital production of color-accurate packaging mock-ups/prototypes – often requested in the packaging design phase or for customer acceptance tests,
• short runs/personalization – replacing time consuming and expensive prints on the production press.

“We are very pleased that we could expand our existing partnership with Mimaki to a worldwide collaboration. Only a few months ago we started our mutual partnership with the solution GMG ColorServer/SmartProfiler and Mimaki inkjet printer UJF-605 UV. Meanwhile we can offer the GMG color management for all Mimaki inkjet printers, worldwide to the benefit of our customers.  That’s a tremendous success within a very short time frame”, says Paul Willems, CEO of GMG GmbH & Co. KG.

“We are excited that now GMG & Mimaki can jointly offer the best possible and most effective technological proofing solution for the packaging and label markets”, says Akira Ikeda, President of Mimaki Engineering Co., Ltd.

Enormous time and cost savings can be achieved by replacing press time and costs for printing plates and gravure cylinders by digital production. The Mimaki inkjet printers have been optimized for digital proofing in the offset, gravure and flexo packaging industry. In combination with GMG color management technology, perfect color match, optimum spot color reproduction, highest repeatability and optimum print quality up to a resolution of 1200dpi can be achieved on any substrate such as shrink or metallic foils, tin and compound boards. Nearly any printing stock can be used with the GMG-Mimaki solution.

The German-based packaging company Wipak, specialized in food and medical packaging use the GMG/Mimaki solution for digital proofing on original material for flexible packaging and the production of color-accurate mock-ups. “Producing contract proofs and color-accurate mock-ups on original stock is very important for us as it means a lot of time saving in the sign off process with the print buyer. Customers appreciate our service to see at a very early stage a simulation of the final print result on transparent film”, says Thomas Kinzer, production manager at Wipak.

The GMG/Mimaki solution can be seen at IPEX on the Mimaki stand hall 12, C120

GMG, the world's leading color management solutions provider, is pleased to announce that it will present solutions with HP for the commercial and wide-format printing segments at the HP stand AB150 in hall 12 at Ipex 2010.

"We feel confident that GMG and HP customers will be pleased with the high color accuracy and repeatability of consistent color results which can be achieved in digital printing with GMG's highly innovative color management solutions," says Paul Willems, CEO of GMG GmbH & Co. KG.

The solutions include ColorServer for color conversions and SmartProfiler for calibrating and profiling different output devices, such as HP Indigo digital presses or HP Scitex industrial large-format printers. GMG and HP are therefore expanding their long-standing relationship in the field of high-end contract proofing, where the GMG ColorProof proofing software has been supporting the HP Designjet Z-Series wide-format printers from the outset.

The combination of GMG SmartProfiler and GMG ColorSever helps users of HP digital presses and wide-format printers easily meet their customers' increasing expectations for high color accuracy, repeatability and colors that match those of print media produced by conventional offset printing processes. The solutions also benefit companies that have several similar or identical output devices installed. In these cases, distributed color management on each front-end results in different color rendering on the individual printing systems. With centrally controlled color management using GMG SmartProfiler and GMG ColorServer, companies can greatly increase productivity, improve production reliability and achieve identical quality of printed output.

"GMG SmartProfiler and GMG ColorServer enable us to easily create color profiles and calibrations for different output devices and substrates," says Gunther Fells, Head of the Digital Printing department at KL Druck, Germany. "The high-quality color conversions offered by GMG ColorServer optimally convert colors, including spot colors, into the color space of the required output devices. Since we have been using GMG color management technology with several of our HP Scitex printers, we have been able to achieve repeatable and identical print quality on every printing system and substrate in our portfolio, which otherwise is a very difficult and time consuming production process."

Recently, GMG successfully passed the FograCert Validation Printing System certification for the HP Indigo press 5500 and the HP Indigo 7000 Digital Press using the GMG ColorServer color management solution for the coated substrates Digi Gold Matt and Digi Gold Gloss from Papyrus/Schneidersoehne. The certification was achieved at HP in Boeblingen, Germany. In addition, IDEAlliance SWOP (Specifications for Web Offset Publications) and GRACoL (General Requirements and Applications for Commercial Offset Lithography) certifications have been granted to GMG ColorServer for the HP Indigo press 5500/5000 and the HP Indigo 7000 Digital Press.

"We are delighted to further strengthen our collaboration with HP as the de-facto market leader in the digital printing market. But we are even more satisfied that HP customers can confidently take advantage of the well-known GMG color management technology, which will impact both companies' technology leadership in this fast growing segment. Our common customers will certainly be very impressed by the high accuracy and repeatability of colors as well as by gaining more flexibility, with consistent print quality on different output devices, enabling users to select the printing process at the last minute", says Paul Willems, CEO of GMG GmbH & Co. KG.

"Based on use cases between HP Scitex customers and GMG, we are pleased to report that testing was successful and customers can maximize the performance of their printing systems with the combination of these two solutions. GMG provides innovative technology for high-quality color management in mixed production environments covering a wide range of HP commercial and wide-format output devices," adds Eli Israeli, Strategic Marketing, HP Scitex Division.

Global Graphics, a leading developer of printing and electronic document software, has extended its long-standing relationship with HP for a minimum of a further five years.

Global Graphics' Harlequin RIP provides high- performance processing for HP's digital front ends (DFEs) that drive HP Indigo and IHPS devices. The DFEs - the HP SmartStream Ultra Print Server and HP Production Pro - streamline and manage the print workflow and allow expanded, scalable performance to be added to HP digital presses. This is critical for high-value, high-volume printing applications that require RIP intensive job processing such as photo specialty printing, which has to accommodate peaks in seasonal demand, as well as book publishing.

"Our commitment is to deliver faster performing technology to support HP's exceptional productivity demands", comments Global Graphics' CEO Gary Fry. "HP is at the leading edge of digital printing and they need leading edge software that will support their high-volume devices and provide the efficiency gains required by their customers."

"The Harlequin RIP software in our leading SmartStream Production Pro print server helps us to provide a high performance DFE to our customers" said Alon Gazit, director of R&D HP Indigo. "We're excited to continue our relationship with Global Graphics and continue to lead with high performance RIP servers. "

Global Graphics first announced its partnership with HP to provide printing software for HP Indigo print servers in 2002 with introduction of the HP Production Pro. The two companies' collaboration was expanded again in 2004.

The Harlequin RIP is known for its high-performance and reliability notably in production intensive environments. It is widely used for digital printing, proofing, workflow and to drive Computer to Plate devices.