Digital Print Summit ’08 – a digital delight
First of its kind Digital Print Summit, with platinum
sponsorship of HP and gold sponsorships of Spectra,
ONYX, Aqua Tint inks and WonPoong, held in four
metros, received considerable good response. For
Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and Delhi printers, it was
an event with a new approach. While for those who
missed out, S&G brings a glimpse of the same.
Digital Print Summit ‘08, a
series of four-city technical
assembling, did receive
good industry participation in its
very first edition. The summit
travelled across the four metros
and kicked off its maiden voyage
from Mumbai (12th April,
Kohinoor Continental), then it
reached three other cities, viz
Chennai (14th April, Savera
Hotel); Kolkata (16th April,
Peerless Inn); and Delhi (18th
April, India Habitat Centre).
It was sign industry’s original
signature event in real sense as it
shared the in-depth information
about the industry. Moreover, the
good participation of industry
professionals added extra value to
the event. All the speakers at the
event were qualified and
successful professionals, who
all had interesting and interactive
question-answer sessions with
the audience. Everyone who
attended the summit was
over-whelmed with the
information so received.
The event was officially
inaugurated in Mumbai in
presence of industry professionals
and dignitaries. Sonal Khurana of
Sign & Graphics, media partner to
the event, welcomed the
industry professionals and
elaborated the unique concept of
four-city summit.
To start the presentation
session, Manish Agarwal of Mono
Sign Systems, representing,
Wonpoong, chose an interesting
topic on ‘Printing substrates:
different media’s how to
measure/weigh.’ Mono Sign
Systems is formerly known as Acry
Monomers founded in 1987 and
today it represents Aqua Tint
inks, Hanwha, Ritrama, and
WonPoong. Having around two
decades of experience in dealing
with various printing substrates,
his presentation intelligently
clarified most of the prevailing
myths in this segment.
While introducing the company,
Manish stated, “WonPoong, based
in Seoul, Korea, is the second
largest manufacturer of flex in
Korea. The company has
subsidiaries: Synthetic Filament
Woven Fabrics – Malaysia and PVC
Casting Leather - Hong Kong,
Guangzhou, China and India,
which has been launched by us.”
He also explained the advantages
and weaknesses of laminated and
coated fabrics. “Laminated Flex
has advantage of better price,
colour fastness and good printing
ability, whereas the weaknesses
include weaker physical strength
and rough surface. On the other
hands coated fabrics, made from
paste resin-liquid solutionsabsorbed
in fabric (Polyester),
have advantages of strong physical
and technical properties, smooth
surface, high printing quality,
whereas the disadvantages
include lower colour fastness and
high price.”
He also elaborated common
problems of fabrics and reasons
for the same, which included
spots while printing, slow ink
drying, lower strength and low
gloss or shine.
Followed by this, James Gill,
European sales director, FUJIFILM
Dimatix gave presentation
on ‘Printhead technology:
types, maintenance & future
developments’. He started
with his company’s introduction,
and said, “FUJIFILM Dimatix
designs and manufactures piezo
electric, drop-on-demand inkjet
printheads, micropumps and
systems for industrial applications.
Founded in 1984, the company
is headquartered in Santa
Clara, CA.”
The company’s Spectra printhead
product range includes Nova/
Galaxy (256 Jets,30, 50, 80 pl,
configured as printheads or jetting
assemblies and multiple fluids
supported); S-Class (128 Jets, 30,
50, 80 pl, jetting assemblies and
solvent and UV capable); and
Skywalker (128 Jets, 50 pl,
solvent).
While explaining about trouble
shooting and maintenance of
printheads, he said, “Criteria that
define image quality are drop
velocity, drop volume, drop
straightness, Jet-to-Jet uniformity,
and tested and qualified inks, so
one has to be very careful with
these aspects.”
He also explained about the
printhead and nozzle plate
maintenance, “Printheads should
be purged daily as it removes air
build up and produces reliable
printing. To deal with excess ink
accumulation on nozzle plate, it
must be removed periodically as
it will thicken over time with
exposure to heat to UV (UVcurable),
result in weak/
misdirected jets and failures can
increase with nozzle wiping.”
His presentation talked in length
about the printheads and all other
aspects of the technology were
also discussed. His engrossing
presentation attracted maximum
queries during Q&A session.
After this Neerav Goswamy,
technical director, Aqua Tint inks
took over the stage and shared
his presentation on ‘Inks: types,
optimum use of inks & future
developments.’ Aqua Tint is the
only south Asian company to have
Xaar approved inks. Referring inks
as Magic fluid, he said, “Good inks
should be scratch and fade
resistance, have rubbing light and
weather fastness, excellent
colour gamut, and depth of
shade.” According to him, the
success of solvent based inks in
today’s scenario is due to its
compatibility with most
printheads. It is also competitively
priced and can print on uncoated
media without any extensive post
treatment.
Comparing inks to human blood,
Neerav stated, “Ink is a mixture
of different ingredients, each
ingredient being there for a
specific reason. Just like in blood
we have WBC, RBC, Iron,
Calcium etc and each has its own
function, similarly the ink has
various ingredients, each with its
own functionality and not having
these ingredients or having an
imbalance in these ingredients
can cause the printheads to
malfunction, clog, print quality to
detoriate, fastness properties to
reduce and other things of
that sort. Thus, inkjet ink, though
some would like it to be, is not as
simple as mixing two or more
colours and getting the right
shade, it is infact fairly advanced
chemistry. A good ink is one,
which is tailormade to the
specifics of the printhead and the
application used. The two most
common printheads in the Indian
print industry are the Xaar 128
and the Spectra Nova 256.”
Adnan Bilwani’s software
engineer, Onyx in his
presentation tried his best to get
most friendly and interactive with
the audience, talking on ‘RIP :
version, optimum use of RIP S/W
& future developments’ started
with question round, in which he
actually tested audiences
knowledge about RIP. And after
that everyone in the audiences
was totally involved with him all
through his presentation.
'RIP - Raster Image Processors' is
a technology that converts data
from your graphic image into
printer language, tells the printer
when and where to lay down the
dots to make big pretty pictures
and finally process image data to
printer dots,” he said.
In his presentation, Adnan
explained the every minute detail
of RIP technology and stressed on
important features to be
considered while choosing a RIP.
According to him, always choose
a RIP that provides efficiencies,
optimizes setup, and allows for
future growth; offers a universal
workflow solution to automate,
customizes and streamline
processes from start to finish,
standardises on ICC profiles for
consistent colour output across
applications, platforms, and file
formats.
Not only technology, the company
that is offering a RIP is also
important. “Choose a RIP
company that offers dedicated
technical support, certified
training programme, provides
media profiles and printer drivers
on-line and has engineering
resources to innovate,” he
advised.
In the concluding presentation, all
time active Hewlett Packard’s
(HP), application specialist Asia
Pacific, Sudarshan Vaidya stressed
on 'LFP: maintenance, types,
optimum use of inks and future
developments'. Highlighting both
pros and cons of the technology,
he explained about large format
printing in details. He also
highlighted the common errors
we tend to do while printing
and explained in-depth about
the nitty-gritty of the technologies
of LFP.
He laid extra emphasis on the
daily maintenance of the machine
and said, “Maintenance needs to
perform daily, weekly and
monthly…which is a must.
Neglecting proper shut down will
definitely start eroding quality as
heads and other electronic parts
not properly run off power.”
Pankaj Goswami, country
category manager, LFP, HP
presented the young and dynamic
face of the company. In his
presentation, he shared HP’s
future development with the
audience and mentioned
company’s recent acquisition
spree, “We have been expanding
our portfolio through acquisitions.
These acquisitions included Scitex
Vision, MacDermid Colorspan
and NUR Macroprinters. HP
acquired Scitex just 30 months ago
and today we have over 4000
customers worldwide,” he said.
He explained company’s strategy
of acquisitions as a total
structured approach, “Actually we
are trying to build in an
ecosystem, where HP can offer
everything from machines,
software and to all other
printing services.”
"Our other services include
recently launched SnapFish,
world’s largest portfolio
management portal. We are
trying to have big projects on web
as well.”
Pankaj did share an interesting
example of expansion of
applications, which company had
done for the SAP Open,
Germany. “HP enables graphic
arts businesses to confidently build
their competitive advantage and
successfully pursue new, profitable
growth opportunities. Now the
expansion of applications is
endless. Imagine Olympics site
during 80s and today, just see any
of the sports event. The difference
is quite evident.”
While mentioning company’s
continuous growth trajectory, he
said, “We have four R&D centers
in Israel, US, China & Spain.
Mastering all technologies - solvent,
UV, water-based and latex, we are
the leaders in our field. We also
have five ink factories (South Africa,
Puerto Rico, Singapore and two in
Israel)."
He was quite confident about the
digital print market in India, which
is going to be much bigger in the
coming years than what it is today.
“Wide format printing is wellestablished
in India, and the other
segment i.e. superwide format is
going to be the next big thing.
Building wraps and extra large
banners are becoming popular.
The other segment, having a great
potential is textile printing, which
may be a next good business for
Indian printers.”
“The wall paper printing will also
offer great gains. Where all one
needs is a printer that can print
on a paper and with business
contacts with graphics and
interior designers, real good
business can be generated,” he
added.
“We have the proprietary
thermal and piezo inkjet
technologies, new HP wide scan
print-heads & OMAS and also
strong investment in innovative
X2 MEMS print-heads as the
core technology for future
Piezo inkjet platforms,” Pankaj
informed further.
‘Environmental-regulations’ is the
prime concern of all Indian
printers, he also discussed his
views about the same and said,
“Today, in India we have no
regulations for outdoor advertising.
But, it can be imposed any day.
At HP, we have our technologies
and options available with us.
And we as an organization is very
much concerned about the
environment,” he concluded,
while inviting all the industry
professionals to drupa to visit HP’s
grand participation.
This year’s initial success of the
Digital Print Summit has made
the organizers to offer more next
time where they would like to
cover more destinations.