What’s now called embellishment or special effects used to be a group of purely post-press operations. These included lamination, spot or flood varnishing and foiling (hot or cold). Other eye-catching things have always had to be done in or on the press – if you wanted metallic colours you had to use a special ink or print on a metallised substrate; the same applied for fluorescent or other special colours.

Digital print has blurred those boundaries, bringing a number of ways of achieving the same or ‘close enough’ effects, combined with the flexibility and minimal set-up requirements characteristic of digital print. These also split into in-press effects and subsequently-applied effects.

Before looking at these in detail, it’s also worth noting that a sustainability argument is emerging for digital embellishment as an alternative to more conventional processes. This comes from Scodix, which makes stand-alone ‘embellishment presses’ (distributed in the UK by Friedheim) that can apply a wide range of decorative effects to printed sheets, with full digital flexibility in each.

Scodix carried out a lifecycle assessment of its digital foiling options which found that compared to conventional hot stamp foiling, its version reduces CO2e (CO2 equivalent) by 85%, fossil fuel usage by nearly 85%, and water consumption by 80% per B1 sheet. The study, carried out by EcamRicert, and Mérieux NutriSciences Companies, compared the enhancement of a single B1 sheet through to 100,000 B1 sheets using Scodix foil (175g) versus traditional foiling methods.

That’s only one of the options that Scodix offers and there’s no indication given that any of the other supported techniques offer comparable advantages. However, like any other form of digital printing, it seems likely that overall wastage of materials and energy is likely to be lower simply through the ability to only print or finish the number required.

The main argument in favour of these types of effects though is that they add impact to printed products and therefore margin to your work. Some you can only do if you bought the right press, though they could also be a factor in choosing a new one. There’s an increasing number of toner presses that offer additional colours which may include clear ‘varnish’, white, fluorescent and metallic colours, though usually only one or sometimes two at a time.

Plus-one – or more

Machines that offer a fifth colour include Xerox’s iGen line and Ricoh’s Pro C7200, also sold by Heidelberg as the Versafire EV (and about to be replaced by the Pro C7500, though we’ve not seen any specification for this yet). Kodak’s Nexpress and Nexfinity models could do this too, with options over where in the laydown sequence the fifth colour went, though both are now discontinued. Moving up to six colours brings in the popular Xerox Iridesse, and the more recent Fujifilm Revoria, while most HP Indigos can handle up to seven colours, though of course click charges go up in proportion with all extra colour presses. Xerox also offers a conversion kit for two-pass printing on its entry-level PrimeLink C9065/C9070, which potentially allows the use of up to eight colours, albeit with a complete change of toner cartridges between passes.

The exact choice of extra colours varies by manufacturer, but in addition to white – for use on coloured or transparent substrates – and clear – used to create flood or spot varnish effects – fluorescent or ‘neon’ colours are offered, particularly pink and sometimes yellow. These can replace or be mixed with their standard CMYK equivalents to expand the colour gamut for more eye-catching effects. A few offer metallic toners too, which again can be printed solid or mixed to provide novel colours and finishes.

After the event

Post-press options are more about foiling, spot varnish and various creative lamination processes, often in combination. A good entry-level choice here is foil-over-toner, a two-pass method that uses ‘real’ foil in a laminator like Vivid’s Matrix models or those from Caslon, Foliant (sold via IFS), Komfi (from Friedheim) or Autobond. Similar options also come from GMP and Intec, now part of the Plockmatic group.

An entry-level option for foil-over-toner is Vivid’s Matrix, seen here at a trade show

In these, the initial colour print is first laminated with a clear film, then printed again with the foil pattern in black toner on top of the film, before a second pass through the laminator transfers the foil to the partially melted black toner. It’s a more labour-intensive process but it works with a very wide range of foil types and doesn’t require special consumables.

Then there are the fully ‘digital’ embellishment devices that offer spot UV and/or foiling in a single operation. This category includes devices like Duplo’s B2 DuSense 8000, which is offered in various configurations providing spot UV, digital foiling or both, including a pre-treatment option for expanding the types of print that can be handled. It’s also possible to build up textured ‘3D’ effects with multiple passes, which the smaller B3 DuSense 810 also supports. An alternative is the B3+ Konica Minolta AccurioShine 3600, which uses technology from MGI, in which Konica Minolta holds a significant stake. It too can produce ‘dimensional’ effects.

At the top end of the digital embellishment market are the ranges from Konica Minolta/MGI and Scodix. These are dedicated industrial production devices that offer UV varnish and foiling, with Scodix offering a particularly wide range of foils and finished effects, while MGI’s line goes up to B1 sheet size in the form of the print-and-embellish AlphaJet that was formally launched in October 2022. Kurz is another player at the industrial end of the scale, having bought Steinemann, whose inkjet varnish and foiling systems it was already marketing as Digital Metal. These include the sheet-fed B2 DM-Smartliner for 2D flat varnishing and foiling and the DM-Maxliner for raised and textured effects.

Whether you’re just ready to dip a toe into digital embellishment and cautious with the investment, or know that you’ve got a ready market for it but need to be sure it’s good enough and fast enough to meet your customers’ needs, there should be something to suit and help your work shine.

Preparing files for embellishment

All digital embellishment processes require ‘artwork’ to control where the effects are applied. Usually this means creating additional layers in the originating applications and/or print PDFs, though some vendors offer DFE-based tools to create embellishment guides or colour substitutions from standard PDFs on-the-fly.

Andrew Bailes-Collins of Ultimate Technographics, which makes imposition, nesting and ganging software, has written a handy guide to preparing generic PDFs that should process correctly through most embellishment vendors’ DFEs and thus avoid some of the common pitfalls that require manual reworking in the prepress studio.

Called PDF Creation for Digital Embellishment, it covers the use of spot colours, layers, knock-out and overprint and choice of correct versions of PDF for hand-off. It’s available free from Ultimate Technographics’ website.

The post Cause and effect appeared first on Digital Printer.

Fast press response in short-run printing is all very well but not much good if the job then has to go through five finishing stages on five separate machines that each have to be set up, loaded and unloaded. Fast printing needs to be followed by fast finishing, preferably with automated set-up and combining functions where possible.

Some printers opt for inline finishing units, generally booklet makers that can fold and stitch, but sometimes perfect binders. Their great benefit is they can be set up from the same controls as the press and don’t need extra operators. On the other hand if something breaks then both printing and finishing stops until it’s fixed. You need one line per printer, with the notable exception of CP Bourg’s BSF system that lets an inline system on one printer accept stacks from other printers.

Multi-finishers

Broadly speaking, finishing machines are faster than digital presses, so it makes a lot of sense to have separate nearline finishing that can serve two or more presses without breaking a sweat.

That’s why multi-finishers were invented, to do a sequence of tasks in one compact box, normally combining slitting and cross-cutting, scoring and perforating. That’s enough for common jobs such as business and greetings cards, brochure covers and simple slitting and cutting that can be more operator-efficient than a guillotine for small quantities. It’s useful to have a barcode reader and an offsetting stacker to separate sets in the delivery.

Duplo invented the multi-finisher as we know it with its DC-645 in the mid-2000s. Today it offers three main models, each with a few configuration options. The range starts with the £18,000 DC-616 Pro, aimed at copyshops, small print works and similar. It can slit, cut, crease and perforate at up to 10 sheets per minute, depending on the precise functions used, with unattended running. Computer control includes job memories, with a camera to read barcodes and detect marks to compensate for print drifting on the sheet. Its maximum sheet size of 333 x 999mm is compatible with a lot of today’s ‘long-sheet’ SRA3 digital presses.

Rollem builds to order so you can have pretty much whatever you want

The mid-range model is the £35,000 DC-646i, which replaces the original DC-645. It is intended to serve busy print shops with multiple digital presses, finishing up to 30 sheets per minute. The Pro package bundles together the most popular modules and options and the IFS (Integrated Finishing System) option adds extra folding functions.

A £3000 DC-646i JDF option is offered to use with HP Indigo digital presses. It communicates with the HP SmartStream front end, which can write job tickets for the DC-645i. Other presses can swap data with the DC-646i by using Ultimate Technographics’ Ultimate Finishing workflow software. Ultimate Finishing will also drive finishers from CP Bourg, Horizon, Perfecta, Plockmatic, Tecnau, Watkiss (now part of Plockmatic) and others.

The top Duplo multi-finisher is the £55,000 DC-746. This runs nearly twice as fast as the DC-646i, at up to 50 sheets per minute. It’s aimed at printers with high speed presses and also has a JDF option.

Morgana is the distributor for Japanese Uchida multi-finishers in the UK and Scandinavia. Its AeroCut Prime is roughly equivalent to the Duplo DC-646i in capabilities. Its speed depends on setup, such as nine 21-up business cards per minute, or 21 trimmed A3 leaflets with a centre crease; an optional unit can cut 25 cards from a sheet. It takes sheets up to 370 x 900mm and 400gsm and offers slitting, cross-cutting, creasing, cross-perforation and micro perforation. PDF design templates are available to give to artwork creators. A Morgana Autofold folding unit can be added inline.

Horizon’s SmartSlitter competes on features, speed (at 54 sheets per minute) and price with the top Duplo DC-746. Its maximum sheet format is smaller though, at 370 x 670mm. Apart from slitting it can also gutter cut, edge trim, cross-cut, perforate and crease in the same pass. An optional cassette adds skip perforation. A barcode reader automatically adjusts for print position. There’s a choice of a 90mm high stacker or a conveyor delivery.

For B2 work, the SmartStacker can run inline with HP Indigo 10000/12000 presses and converts sheets into up to 28 separate items (seven widthways and four lengthways), with full bleed edge and gutter trimming. It can also run nearline at 4500 B2 sheets per hour.

Both the SmartSlitter and the SmartStacker have optional links to Horizon’s pXnet finishing room network and wider JDF networks, if required. SmartStacker can also link to HP’s Direct2Finish and SmartStream Production Pro DFE.

Pretty well anything the UK finishing manufacturer Rollem sells is custom-configured for individual customers, to the point that it stopped using traditional model names and numbers a couple of years ago. It offers sets of finishing modules that can be linked to handle pretty well any finishing sequence you need, to run nearline or inline with digital presses. You could opt to build something that would count as a multi-finisher, though not in the compact one-box format supplied by Duplo, Horizon and Morgana/ Uchida. There’s a choice of modules to bleed slit, trim, micro-perforate, number, perforate, score, slit-perforate, die-cut or punch, collate and wrap (for playing cards) or stack, with a barcode reader.

Rollem can support up to B1 sheets for some functions, and has worked with Konica Minolta to build a bridge unit for the B2 AccurioJet KM-1 inkjet press that can send printed sheets to either inline or nearline finishing units.

The Caslon Zip21A can deliver 228 business cards a minute

Vivid’s VeloBlade new flatbed cutter isn’t billed as a multifinisher but it covers some of the same territory, offering x-y full or kiss cutting and perforating plus creasing of sheets up to 400 x 600mm and up to 1500micron thickness, which includes various packaging materials. Cutting templates can be created in Adobe Illustrator and the various paths assigned as cut or crease guides, with perforation in any direction possible via dashed lines. It requires manual set-up to register the sheet, so isn’t aimed at volume production – cutting/creasing each sheet takes up to 45 seconds depending on number and complexity of cuts – but offers flexibility for more creative

applications or prototyping that might otherwise require diecutting.

Add-on wheels

If you’ve got a folder or a suitable saddle stitcher or even some types of press, a low cost alternative to some of the functions of a multi-finisher is to fit cutting, creasing or perfing wheels to a suitable shaft or swing arm. Many folder makers can offer these as standard to take steel slitting wheels on the exit path of the first folding unit.

In 2000 UK based Tech-ni-Fold came up with a clever alternative system of oval rubber rings for shaft-based add-on creasing wheels, to fit on folders and the like. It added microperfing and cutting wheels and called the system Tri- Creaser. It can now offer some 500 variations.

Tech-ni-Fold can also supply its system ready-built into small standalone machines, through its CreaseStream business. The £1897 CreaseStream Mini base model is hand-fed a sheet at a time and operated manually with a rotary handle. It has potential for up to 1000 sheets per hour – if you can feed it fast enough. The £2997 Mini Quick-Feed allows several sheets to be loaded at once, so 3000sph is achievable. The £4697 Mini Auto-Feed has a motor and automatic stack feeder for up to 4000sph. All models will handle sheets from 65 to 350gsm, in widths from 80 to 520mm.

Card cutters

Card cutters can be productive alternatives to guillotining. You can find cheap ones online, but if you need to make a living from them you’ll need something more robust. Rollem makes card cutters to handle sheets from SRA3 to B1, needing only a 1.6mm separation between bleed cards on a sheet compared to 6mm for a guillotine – that’s enough to get an extra row on some formats.

KAS CreaseMatic CM Auto50 – one of the company’s matrix creasers available through Ashgate

Caslon’s card cutters are resold though several finishing specialists, including Encore Machinery. Its £7250 desktop SRA3 format Zip-21 cuts 228 cards a minute via 21-
up layout on up to 350gsm stock, with 4-edge bleed if needed. The perforating and scoring cassettes let you make tickets and foldover products. The entry-level A4 Zip-10m costs £3750. Faster models from £14,465 to £39,285 progressively offer suction feed, weights up to 500gsm, perfing, creasing and hole punching. The top-of-therange Zip-CS2L costs £80,195, with two tool stations for embossing and round-cornering.

Caslon also sells the Therm-O-Type RAS (right angle slitter), with two inline drop-in cassette wheel units running at up to 6000sph, with optional auto-adjustment. It offers similar speed and accuracy to multi-finishers for about the same price, at £67,210.

Duplo’s DC-515 is a 6000sph production card cutter with a lot in common with the company’s multi-finishers, with swappable pre-set cassettes, but only runs one function at a time. It costs from £25,000.

Creasers

Encore Machinery is a long-standing supplier of the PitStop range of standalone creasers made by Bacciottini In Italy. They use cross blades with rubber matrix formats. There’s a remarkably large choice, starting with the Pitstop 36 creaser-perforator with touch screen setup, for sheets up to 360 x 700mm (or 360 x 850mm with extension), running at 7500 A4 single-crease sheets per hour. There are faster models, and some can run inline with a folder. The most versatile is the PitStop/MB Digital inline creasing and folding system, which can produce finished mailers, with provision for tip-on gluing, perforating, creasing, trimming, turning, buckle folding, plough folding, with optional ink jetting and camera reading.

Terry Cooper Services supplies the Italian Endevor Matrix standalone creasers, which can also have perforation tools fitted. Two 500mm wide models offer 3500 or 6000 A4 sheets per hour with a single crease.

KAS Paper Systems makes the CreaseMatic range of matrix creasers in Dunstable, with Ashgate as its long-standing agent. The base model 150P is hand-fed for up to 2000sph and can be run with the inline CreaseFold unit for single knife folding. The Auto 50 Touch has suction feed and programmable memory and handles SRA2 sheets (500 x 700mm) at over 8000sph.

Although most printers will still feel the need for a conventional guillotine and folder, these card cutters, creasers and more complex multi-finishers can handle a lot of digital finishing jobs more efficiently with less handling. They are worth exploring.

The post Faster finishing for prompt print appeared first on Digital Printer.