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Posted on by Regan Dickinson Posted in Technology & Products
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Video: HP Designjet Graphics Printers Overview

HP Graphics Printers at LexJetThe HP Designjet Z3200, Z5200 and Z5400 have a solid track record in the large format inkjet printer market.

Each is a versatile graphics printer that meets a different set of needs with consistent color and easy use for applications like point of purchase, backlits, photo reproduction, posters, canvas printing, presentations and more.

For an overview of HP’s Designjet Graphics printers and to get a better idea about which one might best fit your needs, check out the video embedded below. For more details, call your LexJet printer specialist at 800-453-9538.

Check back tomorrow for an overview of HP’s Designjet Production Printers: the HP Designjet Z6200, Z6600 and Z6800.

Posted on by Regan Dickinson Posted in Technology & Products
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Etching and Textured Papers for Décor Printing Join the Sunset Line of Inkjet Media

Sunset Textured SD
Photo of Sunset Textured SD Paper being printed at Soicher-Marin, Sarasota, Fla., by Heather Storm, production specialist.

Print shops, fine art reproduction companies and photographers looking for an edge in the production of décor artwork for their customers now have two inkjet décor papers they can add to their product line: Sunset Etching SD and Sunset Textured SD.

Both were designed to replicate the high quality of Sunset Cotton Etching and Sunset Textured Fine Art papers, which are geared toward custom high-end reproductions, while offering a price point and production capabilities for longer runs of décor prints. They are compatible with aqueous inkjet printers.

Sunset Etching SD Paper 210g: Perfectly priced for high-volume work, it has a natural, relatively smooth surface and is ideal for watercolor, fine art and poster reproductions.

“We really like it. In fact, a customer told me yesterday that when it’s printed it looks like velvet. It’s the best we’ve ordered and that’s why we keep using it,” says Elizabeth Ashford, production manager for Encore Editions, New Hope Pa., which uses the paper for reproducing 18th and 19th century artwork.

Sunset Textured SD Paper 245g: Also priced for high-volume work, this décor paper features a natural-white textured surface that adds a painterly look to photographic prints and art reproductions. It can add surface dimension and visual interest to paintings and images that consist mainly of bold, loose strokes instead of intricate details.

“It’s very consistent in texture and quality. The texture looks especially good for fine art prints, and more importantly, our customers like it because you can’t tell that it was inkjet-printed; it looks like the original art,” says Heather Storm, production specialist for Soicher-Marin, Sarasota, Fla.

Greg Doucet, owner of Renaissance Imaging in Baton Rouge adds, “I am trying to promote the Sunset Textured SD more because I think the texture helps with the final print, especially watercolor and oil reproductions. It helps us on longer print runs because it’s not quite as sensitive to handling, and we’re able to price it at a point that works for us and our clients.”

Sunset Textured SD and Sunset Etching SD have recently been added to LexJet’s Sunset line of fine art, photo and fine photo paper, canvas and coatings.

They are available for next-day delivery in most of the Continental U.S. from of LexJet’s nationwide distribution centers, and come with LexJet’s 30-day money-back guarantee and free and unlimited product support. Sunset Textured SD is available in 17″-60″ widths and Sunset Etching SD in 17″-44″ widths.

Posted on by Regan Dickinson Posted in News & Trends, Technology & Products
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Canon Introduces New Economical Poster Printers

New Canon Wide Format Inkjet PrintersCanon has introduced its new SE Series imagePROGRAF large format inkjet printers, geared toward poster and infographics printing. The new SE Series printers include the six-color 44-inch iPF8400SE Printer and 24-inch iPF6400SE Printer.

The SE Series includes a variety of features designed for efficiency and ease of use. Using the fast printing mode, the iPF SE Series can print an A1/D sized poster on coated paper in about one minute. The compact body design offers a small footprint, and the hot-swap ink tanks allow the inks to be changed while a job is in progress without stopping the print job.

An operator assistance function can also be set up on the device to provide messages that notify the user of needed routine services to help limit interruptions during print jobs.

The SE Series offers an Economy Printing Mode that decreases ink consumption. In this mode, overall color density is reduced to help cut ink consumption by up to 50 percent compared to the Standard mode.

The Canon Printer Driver provides a free layout (nesting) feature, allowing various print jobs to be placed on one sheet of media.

The SE Series also features PosterArtist Lite, which allows users to access pre-designed templates, royalty-free images, clipart, backgrounds, frames, text graphics, an image correction function that automatically corrects image colors, and a Cut Out function to remove selected areas of an image. A full version of PosterArtist is available for purchase, which includes additional pre-designed materials and advanced features such as Auto Design, Variable Printing, Design Check, Ambient Light Correction and Advanced Image Editing.

The Canon Printer Driver includes a new poster print setting, and Direct Print & Share, which offers cloud-based sharing capabilities, and several other management tools to help enhance set up and efficiency such as the Accounting Manager. The Accounting Manager helps track printing costs and includes a Media Configuration Tool for the quick and easy update of media information. Operating applications such as Print Plug-in for Microsoft Office Suite are also included.

Canon’s newly developed six-color ink system utilizes LUCIA EX features the traditional Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black and Matte Black inks, along with Red ink, which Canon says expands the color gamut beyond Canon’s imagePROGRAF eight-color models in the yellow to red regions to help produce vibrant, eye-catching posters.

Through Canon’s nozzle design, one printhead delivers six colors through six channels providing output from 15,360 individual nozzles. The LUCIA EX pigment ink system also helps ensure durable colors and scratch resistance for posters, retail graphics and other applications.

For more information about the new printers, and for questions about which printer would be best for your business, contact a LexJet customer specialist at 800-453-9538.

Posted on by Regan Dickinson Posted in Technology & Products
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Pre-Event Promotion with Big Graphics at the Point of Sale

Large Inkjet Printed Store Banner

Dew Downtown Flagstaff is rolling like the proverbial snowball. Now in its third year, the event turns downtown Flagstaff into one long terrain park where boarders and skiers compete for prizes.

As the event gains traction and grows each year, the P.O.P. print shop at Nackard Companies pumps out increasingly more graphics year over year. This year, Nackard has also been printing pre-event promotions, the largest of which is currently hanging in a local Sam’s Club over a 400-plus case display of Mountain Dew beverages.

The graphic is 16 feet wide by 8 feet tall, double-side, divided into four sections to make transportation of the graphic easier. Printed on LexJet TOUGHcoat Water-Resistant Polypropylene, the four sections are actually made up of six print panels, paneled together with double-sided tape.

“I used my ONYX RIP software to panel it properly before I printed it. Each panel is 35” x 8’: it was about six pieces total with a 1/2” overlap. I designed it at the final size and told ONYX to give me a 1/2” overlap,” explains Steve Lalio, P.O.P. shop manager. “I took the printed pieces, laminated it, trimmed off the excess and used double-sided tape to put it all together as one big banner. I also placed gray lines in the RIP to tell me where the four-foot sections were, and then cut it at each line for transportation.”

Lalio adds that they were trying to bridge the gap between a graphic that was too heavy and one that was too light. Originally, the customer wanted the graphic applied to Coroplast, but Lalio explained that it would make it too heavy. Fabric would have been too light, and Lalio wanted a material substantial enough to attach the 3D snowboarder to on the right side of the graphic.

Inkjet Printed Truck BacksLalio also reinforced the top and bottom with strips of 2’x 4′ Coroplast, which also acted as anchor when Lalio drilled the snowboarder into the banner. The snowboarder was printed on LexJet TOUGHcoat Water-Resistant Self Adhesive Polypropylene, laminated with LexJet 3 Mil Luster UV Standard Low Melt laminate, applied to a piece of Coroplast, and die cut.

Among other pre-event promotional graphics, Nackard also applied graphics the company’s Pepsi truck backs with LexJet Extreme AquaVinyl w/ PSA, laminated with LexJet 3 Mil Luster UV Standard Low Melt. Meanwhile, the shop is printing virtually non-stop for Dew Downtown Flagstaff, which runs Feb. 8-9.

Check back here for a recap of the graphics production for Dew Downtown Flagstaff sometime after the event. And, pray for snow (they could use more of the natural stuff for it).

Posted on by Regan Dickinson Posted in Case Studies & Profiles, Technology & Products
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Printing High-Quality Variable-Data Posters

Poster Print on LexJet Sunset Photo Satin SUV

Poster printing is a print shop staple. A perfect fit for wide-format inkjet poster printing is where variable data is included in a given poster print run.

Behlmann Digital, Florissant, Mo., recently completed just such a project where the variable data was language.

Owner Jeff Behlmann says about 10-12 posters out of the entire run of 1,100 posters for an international life science and technology company were printed in a given language and distributed worldwide.

Poster Printing by Behlmann Digital“It wasn’t feasible to go to an offset press for this project, given the different languages that were being printed, which was a perfect fit for what we do,” says Behlmann. “We used a different print material for the first batch, but they came back and wanted them printed on a thicker, higher-quality paper.”

Behlmann chose the new LexJet Sunset Photo Satin SUV 275g for the next batch, which totaled about 200 pieces, varying in size from 24″ x 18″ up to 46″ x 33″.

“The images reproduced very well, and we never had issues with the ink drying,” says Behlmann. “We were able to push our Roland low-solvent printers at 360×720 because they wanted them quickly. There were problems with the posters that went to Japan because the translations were wrong, but fortunately we didn’t have anything to do with the translations.”

Posted on by Regan Dickinson Posted in News & Trends, Technology & Products
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New Instant-Dry Photo Papers for Solvent, Low-Solvent, Latex and UV-Curable Printing

Fostergraphs Poster Printing
Fostergraphs’ poster printing for Iowa’s sports teams is now easier, quicker and more dynamic with the addition of LexJet 8 Mil Production Satin SUV 180g.

 

Three new instant-dry photo papers for solvent, low-solvent, UV-curable and latex printers that address both high-end and production-oriented photo reproduction and graphics production have been introduced by LexJet.

The new photo papers were developed to open up new markets and profitable applications for print shops, sign companies, point-of-purchase and exhibit producers, and fine-art reproduction companies.

The new LexJet photo papers include:

LexJet Sunset Photo Satin SUV 275g: Highly scratch-resistant, this 11-mil satin-finish photo paper is perfect for posters, fine photos, corporate and hotel lobby displays, retail displays, décor, and other applications where image quality and performance are essential.

LexJet Sunset Photo Gloss SUV 275g: Provides the same benefits as the new satin photo paper but in a gloss finish. Both papers are specially formulated to dry instantly with low-solvent, solvent, latex and UV-curable inks so that users can put their take-up reel to work for longer production runs. They’re also the thickest, most durable photo papers on the market in their class. The new Sunset SUV photo papers are based on LexJet’s award-winning Sunset line of fine art papers, photo papers and canvases preferred by professional photographers and fine art reproduction companies for their extremely wide color gamut and high Dmax, as well as their ability to hold fine detail.

LexJet 8 Mil Production Satin SUV 180g: Geared toward high-volume production work that requires a balance of quality and economy, this satin-finish production paper features a high-performance, instant-dry, scratch-resistant base for posters, photo reproductions, point-of-purchase displays, and other commercial applications.

“The Sunset Photo Satin and Gloss SUV media print great on our Epson GS6000 low-solvent printer, and the drying time is very good with both,” says Trevor Odell of Colormax Digital, Evansville, Ind. “I’ve been searching for a heavyweight, durable paper for solvent that’s just as good as photo papers for aqueous printers, but at a lower cost, and this is it.”

Fostergraphs Photo Printing
Kent Foster, Fostergraphs, also reports that LexJet’s new SUV photo papers produce excellent saturation and color.

Regarding LexJet 8 Mil Production Satin SUV 180g, Kent Foster, Fostergraphs Inc., Decorah, Iowa, comments: “I tested other solvent photo papers previously and it was always a challenge to get it to dry on our Epson GS6000. This is better now, and the color and saturation is great.”

All three of the new LexJet SUV photo papers allow those who have transitioned to solvent, latex and UV-curable printing from aqueous-based printing to win back customer and market share for higher-end production graphics and photographic reproduction. For long-time users of solvent and UV-curable technologies, the true photo-quality papers open up a range of profitable applications in both emerging and existing markets.
“LexJet’s new suite of photo papers were designed to maximize the production quality of low-solvent, solvent, latex and UV-curable printers, and make production easier,” says Jaimie Mask, LexJet’s product manager. “Our customers are looking for ways to differentiate their output, and that was the driving force behind the development of these new photo papers.”

The new LexJet SUV photo papers are available for next-day delivery in most of the Continental U.S. from one of LexJet’s nationwide distribution centers, and come in 36-in., 54-in., and 61-in. widths. As with all LexJet products they come with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Contact a LexJet customer specialist at 800-453-9538 for more information and to order.