Real Color Design Partners with EPSON for Marvel-ous Results

Real Color Design, in Torrance, Calif., has been printing fine art reproductions for years. In 2008, it became an authorized print house for Warner Brothers Studios and they also hold the licenses to print images for Marvel, DC and other well-known studios in California. “Ninety percent of what we do today is related to the studios. Our customers are licensed with Marvel, WB, DC Comics, Dynamite studio,” says print manager, Alex Costa.

With a customer base like that, there is no margin for error. To meet the demands of qualifying as an authorized print resource, Costa and his team work with a fleet of EPSON printers. “We’ve been with Epson since the beginning,” he says. “Currently, we use the SureColor F6200 (dye-sub), SureColor S80600 (solvent) and SureColor P10000 (aqueous) and on occasion, we still use our old 9880.”

Given the wide breadth of Epson technology available, Costa and his team can offer diverse prints to their customers. “We do archival fine art on Hahnemühle, Sunset Velvet Rag and canvas, for dye-sub, we do aluminum prints on Chromaluxe as well as wood and sometimes fabric,” he says.

One of Real Color Designs’ largest customers is Sideshow Collectables. When they got their license to print, they realized right away that they couldn’t just use any printer, they had to find an authorized resource. “They came and met with us, and we helped them build from nothing to getting their print program up and running,” Costa says. “From mock-ups to introducing them to new materials, we’re there with them from conception to design to print.”

It’s that partnership with their customers that has helped Real Color Designs work with some of the most renowned high-end art gallery and collectibles companies around the world. “We were approached by Castle Fine Art, a gallery that is part of a major chain of over 50 galleries in the UK and Europe, that includes Halcyon Gallery which displays great artists like Picasso,” he says.

Relationship building and delivering results has helped Costa and the team create a name for themselves in an industry that demands perfection. “When Castle came to us, they said, ‘We want to start working with you because we’ve seen your work with Marvel.’ We are getting into the high, high-end fine art,” he says. “Right now, we are working with artist Domingo Zapata. They’re going to release a whole new line of prints and we’re working with them the same way we do with Sideshow.”

Costa says that they treat their customers the way they are treated by LexJet. “We see the customer as a partner, the way LexJet has worked with us since we started our business relationship in 2011. Stuart Haddow [LexJet sales specialist] sees us as a partner and tries to work stuff out, figure out our needs.”

The partnership relies on trust. Costa puts his trust in EPSON because he knows the quality that his customers and licensees demand. He puts his trust in LexJet to work with him on existing products and help him find new products that will excite his customers. His customers put their trust in him to create high-end art pieces that look like they stepped right off of a movie set or just out of a comic book.

Now Available: EPSON SureColor S-Series Print and Cut Bundles

In the spring, EPSON announced that print and cut bundles would be available for order this summer. If you’ve been patiently waiting since ISA to place your order for the new bundles, the wait is over.

The three full-solution bundles include: 

Instantly save up to $5,000 with rebates on all Print and Cut bundles.

The combination of SureColor printer, Graphtec cutter and Onyx software gives you everything you need to expand your capabilities and create stickers, decals and car wraps, in addition to the signage, graphic arts and décor print projects that you can produce on the Epson S-Series printers.

If you would like more information on the new bundles, call a LexJet printer specialist at 800-453-9538 or visit us at LexJet.com.

Epson Introduces Five New Printers at ISA 2019

Thursday, Epson announced new additions to the SureColor P-Series and S-Series printer families. There will be production versions of the Standard P10000 and P20000:

  • SureColor P10000 Production – 44-in aqueous printer designed to create high-quality sign and graphics in fast-paced production environments. Perfect for signage, indoor displays and photographic/fine art printing.
  • SureColor P20000 Production – 64-in aqueous printer designed to create high-quality sign and graphics in fast-paced production environments. Perfect for signage, indoor displays and photographic/fine art printing.

What’s different? ONYX RIPcenter, a workflow software that incorporates Adobe Postscript® and is a powerful color management tool is now included.

The new Production printers offer the same 2.6” wide Epson PrecisionCore® MicroTFP printhead as the Standard edition and the Epson UltraChrome® PRO nine-color pigmented ink set will still be available with high-capacity 700 ml ink cartridges which, along with more efficient ink usage, allows for an extremely low cost per print.

These printers will be available to order starting in May.

In addition to the Production P-Series printers, Epson also announced the availability of Print and Cut bundles for the SureColor S-Series.

Available for order in June, these bundles will include an S-Series printer, and FC8600-130 cutter and Onyx software.

The S60600 is one of the fastest production printers on the market and now, combined with the Graphtec cutter and Onyx GamaPrintPro with Onyx CUT-Server, a premium print and cut solution is available.

The S80600 partners photographic image output with a top-of-the-line cutter and Onyx Thrive, to provide color-critical clients a reliable print and cut option.

Ordering details are not available for these new Epson printers, but if you would like more information, please call one of our printer specialists at 800-453-9538.

News You Can Use from Our Printer Partners: Canon, Epson & HP

We know you rely on us to keep you up-to-date with what’s going on in the industry, so over the past few weeks we’ve collected some exciting news from our partners at Canon, Epson and HP in regards to new printers, helpful software to make production easier and award-winning technology.

Canon imagePROGRAF TX-Series

New Canon Printer Designed for CAD/Engineering: The all-new Canon imagePROGRAF TX-Series pairs the exacting standards of high-end photo printers with high-speed production for super-fast, intricately detailed output. It’s also a money-saver with 5-color ink tanks available in 700 ml, 330 ml or 160 ml. It’s compatible with low-cost LED paper and makes production easier with an automatic media loading system that’s super simple and unlike other wide-format printers on the market. This game-changing printer will be available in November. Also, be sure to ask about 0% financing available on all Canon imagePROGRAF printers.

Epson SureColor S80600

Epson S-Series Receives High Accolades: Each model of the Epson SureColor S-Series solvent printers received a Pick Award from the Buyers Lab (BLI), an independent evaluator of document imaging software, hardware and services. The Epson SureColor S40600 was named Outstanding Entry Level CMYK 54″/64″ Eco-solvent/Latex Device. The Epson SureColor S60600 was awarded Outstanding High Production CMYK 54″/64″ Eco-solvent/Latex Device, and the Epson SureColor S80600 received the award for Outstanding Gamut Expansion 54″/64″ Eco-solvent/Latex Device. “These awards give special recognition to manufacturers and products that perform above their peers in our exhaustive lab tests, and all three S-Series models did extremely well in our tests – providing accuracy that any color-critical print shop would appreciate,” said David Sweetnam, director of research and lab services, EMEA/Asia, Keypoint Intelligence. Through the end of 2017, Epson is offering the largest discount ever on these machines. Call us for more details.

HP Latex 115 Print & Cut Bundle

HP Expands Print-N-Cut Portfolio & Support Solutions: The HP Latex Print & Cut bundles have sparked a lot of interest among printers who want to expand into printing stickers, decals, labels and more, with ease of use and minimal equipment footprint. The HP Latex 315 and 335 Print & Cut Bundles are geared to high-volume shops. HP has recently released the HP Latex 115 Print & Cut Bundle as an entry-level option, as well. To support these new machines, HP Signage Suite now has easy-to-design applications for Print & Cut as well as tools to help manage production. If you attend a qualifying event, you can save big on a bundle. Watch the video below for details on HP Signage Suite, and give us a call at 800-453-9538 to learn more.

Biggest Epson S-Series Savings Ever

If you’ve considered upgrading or adding eco-solvent printing to your operation, there’s no better time than now. Since Epson launched its S-Series eco-solvent printers in January 2016, the three machines have taken over the market as the state-of-the-art leader. Now through the end of 2017, Epson is offering up to $8,000 off an S-Series printer: The biggest savings ever on these models.

Through Dec. 31, 2017, take advantage of these special prices:

Epson S-Series S40600, 64-inch solvent printer with 4-color CMYK ink set. This entry-level eco-solvent printer and its Dual-Array PrecisionCore TFP Print Head were designed for high speeds with greater resistance to head strikes and banding as well as an all new dot precision for crisper prints.

Printer Review: Epson Solvent S-Series One Year Later

Last year I wrote a review describing my initial experience with the newest Epson Solvent SureColor S-Series printer, the S60600. You may recall that I could not find anything negative to write about it.

Well, I figured one year and hundreds of prints later is a good time to give everyone an update on these solvent printers. On our tech support floor, we run more than 25 different wide format machines. We typically use them to run profiles for each printer/product combination. There are times when we print on both the Epson S60600 and the Epson S80600 continuously five days straight. But the next month, we’ll only use the once or twice a week.

As a testing facility, we are a very odd user since we will have spells of not using a machine for some time, but that makes our situation prime for a review that is ideal to satisfy both types of users.