The new grades are Advantage, Essential and ProFilm. Advantage is suitable for litho-based lamination in applications such as magazines, brochures and book covers. It is available in gloss and matt finishes across a wide range of sizes.

Essential is a film range with  options suitable for both litho and digital print. Its finishes include matt, gloss, silk and ‘soft allure’ for the enhancement of magazines, brochures and packaging, with an antibacterial version for added protection.

The ProFilm films are designed to help enhance and embellish business cards, luxury packaging, menus and similar items. ProFilm is also available in a range of visually attractive and tactile textured finishes such as leather, sand and linen.

‘This announcement marks an exciting move for Premier,’ commented Phil Marfella-Smith, digital and specialist products manager at Premier. ‘By launching these new grades of lamination film, we offer an improved choice to our customers whilst maintaining range integrity and continuity.’

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AccurioShine 3600 is the first Konica Minolta-branded MGI product built on the success of the MGI JETvarnish 3D One. The press has been designed to offer special effects utilising the Jetvarnish technology, including the AIS SmartScanner registration system.

Originally based in the UAE, Sketches Int established its UK operations in 2019 to extend its high-quality bespoke print, labels, and packaging products to a new European audience. The Ruislip-based printing and design agency is utilising its new investment to produce high-impact and premium-quality products for its customers, whilst saving 30% on costs by completing embellishments in-house.

Sketches Int director Nizar Alolabi commented, ‘We are proud to be the first UK print business to be using the AccurioShine 3600, which undoubtedly gives us an advantage over our competitors. We have been very pleased with the whole process, from the initial consultation to the easy and straightforward installation and continued ongoing support from the Konica Minolta team.’

Allan Bates, business development manager at Konica Minolta Business Solutions (UK), said, ‘We were convinced that the AccurioShine 3600 would be the perfect solution for Sketches Int, but we are always careful to make sure we match a potential customer with exactly the right solution for their needs and budget. Initially the company supplied us with some test artwork files so we could produce demonstration pieces which were then sent to Nizar and the team to assess. Following that, Nizar visited our showroom in Sutton-in-Ashfield for the first of several hands-on demonstrations of the AccurioShine 3600, to test various substrates and B3 media, which included labels that are kiss cut out once printed and embellished on Intec B3 plotters, along with artwork setup and operators training.’

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Printed Easy offers a broad selection of general commercial products, including bound documents and brochures and roll labels. When Jon Lancaster took over Falkland Press as it then was in 2005, he pushed the family-owned business to expand into online printing whilst driving a raft of production efficiencies through its in-house software development, and rebranded the business in 2018.

According to Mr Lancaster, the company started to pay attention to the Scodix Ultra 6000 Press when the team saw the format and quality, ‘The B1 format and new polymers allow low cost-per-sheet which competes with conventional UV on a flat finish, whilst SHD brings us breakthrough quality in terms of sharpness and detai,. he commented.’

Printed Easy intends to use the Scodix Ultra 6000 to add both raised and flat UV and foil to every general commercial product, both bound and unbound, in its range, with many options currently being designed. The integration of the Ultra 6000 into Printed Easy’s automated production is the next step to continue the mantra of ‘bringing offline print to the web-to-print market.’ The software automation and the automatic registration system that Scodix offers was a significant attraction this.

‘We’re excited that with the Scodix Ultra 6000, Printed Easy will fulfil even more of its customers’ expectations with a large range of embellishment options, along with dynamic pricing across all its products, run lengths and custom sizes. I feel everything is set to meet their high demands for production economics,’ commented Franz Repp, president of EMEA for Scodix.

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The term ‘embellishment’ can encompass inline printed effects such as metallic, pearlescent or fluorescent inks, or post-press processes such as raised and textured effects – sometimes called ‘tactile’ or ‘haptic’ – plus a wide variety of foiled effects that can range from mirror-bright metallics through diffraction and holographic effects, or just special colours.

A lot of the recent action has been over the Atlantic, but much of it is relevant to the UK and Europe. September saw the existing US based Foil & Specialty Effects Association (FSEA) announce the formation of the more focused Digital Embellishment Alliance (DEA), which it describes as a community to create educational and communication opportunities in the growing digital print embellishment segment.

This followed a three-day event in June in Minneapolis called Amplify Print, organised by the FSEA and APTech, which highlighted digital embellishment.

‘In the world of digital print embellishments, we see a market that is on the cusp of going mainstream but still suffers from an awareness issue at the brand and designer level,’ explained Gene Petrie, chair of the FSEA board of directors. ‘A key aim of the DEA is to help users and manufacturers educate their customers and increase understanding of how these digital embellishment technologies can help brands increase their print ROI.’ This year’s LabelExpo in Chicago, the first one to be held since the 2019 show in Brussels, featured a Digital Embellishment Trail for the first time, where stands featuring these effects were flagged up.

While the market for label embellishment is different to commercial printing and packaging, it’s also an indicator of which way the wind is blowing. It’s also worth mentioning Actega’s unique EcoLeaf filmless foiling technology, so far only for narrow web label presses, which applies metallic nanoflakes to a special inkjetted fluid to give a mirror-smooth metallic finish with no waste.

Inline on presses

Digital presses increasingly offer fifth and even sixth units that can take a variety of special toners, some to extend the colour gamut and some to add embellishments such as metallics, spot gloss or other effects. Kodak was the first to really make a go of this in 2008 with the fifth unit on its second-generation Nexpresses, which not only offered a wide range of special colours but could build up a raised ‘dimensional’ embossed effect with clear toner.

An example of the effects achievable with the combination
of digital spot UV and foiling on Duplo’s DuSense 8000

This has been continued with the latest Nexfinity models, whose fifth unit can produce 13 effects, including gold, silver, dimensional or gloss clear, and an opaque white. Xerox has also offered extra colours for years, most notably with its Iridesse model, which as the name suggests majors on its special effects abilities. Iridesse is still the only dry toner press to offer six colour stations, though HP Indigo liquid toner presses can have up to seven. Iridesse can run special toners in the first and sixth, or fifth and sixth positions – you might choose white in the first position as an undercoat on clear, dark or metallised substrates. Special toners can be white, clear (high or low gloss), fluorescent pink, gold or silver. The past few years have seen Xerox introduce add-on embellishment options as ‘Adaptive CMYK+’ kits for the mid-production Versants and the entry-level PrimeLink C9065/C9070.

These allow users to swap out the CMYK cartridges for a second embellishment pass. There’s a choice of ‘Vivid’ (silver, gold, white and clear, or fluorescent (cyan, magenta yellow, plus normal black). These can be fitted aftermarket if needed. Switching between toner sets takes 10 minutes or so, but Xerox Europe’s head of marketing Kevin O’Donnell says that it allows smaller printers to broaden their offerings and keep embellishment work inhouse. The high end iGen 6 has a fifth unit too, which gained a new fluorescent yellow toner option last year, alongside white, clear and some Pantone specials. Ricoh’s Pro C7200sx series toner presses have an inline fifth unit that can run white, clear, neon yellow, neon pink and ‘invisible’ security red.

White can run as the first colour if needed as an undercoat. HP Indigo digital presses are still unique in the way they can run up to seven colours with easy swapping. ‘Special’ inks include two white types, gloss and matt clear, silver, fluorescents (green, orange and pink), plus gamut[1]extending and tone-smoothing colours. Xeikon is developing a range of embellishment modules for its web toner presses that it calls Fusion; at LabelExpo it demonstrated an opaque white and silver printing on clear film. Foiling with laminators The post-press ‘sleeking’ market of foil embellishment via lightly modified thermal laminators makes a very attractive entry level for jobs where metal dies aren’t cost-effective. Several laminator suppliers promote this in the UK.

The results may not be as sharp as metal dies or the expensive inkjet foilers, but the entry costs are very low indeed, especially as the machines still work for conventional lamination, as with D&K’s range which foils up to B2. The Korean manufacturer GMP pioneered laminators with foiling facilities and sells three via GMP UK, a part of Gardiner Graphics. Intec Printing Systems – recently bought by Plockmatic and now sold alongside Morgana in the UK – bases its pair of ColorFlare foil laminators on GMP hardware: the CF350 costs £1999 and the CF1200 starts from £7999.

It also sells compatible foils, which were recently extended with a fashionable rose gold colour, plus copper and a useful opaque white. Vivid Lamination also offers a special Matrix Metallic version of its popular 420mm wide sheet-fed thermal laminator, for spot foils and gloss effects. This features modified rollers and a foil feeder. Other suppliers of laminator with foiling options include Autobond, Foliant (sold by IFS, using the retrofittable Multi-functional Imprinting Unit) and Komfi (sold by Friedheim). It was Caslon who pioneered the foil-onto-toner market in the 1980s, using dedicated heater-applicators rather than laminators. The company currently sells US-built FoilTech. machines, starting about £2000 for a 340mm wide manual feed model, up to a bit over £4000 for an auto-feed twin ribbon machine. A much more expensive but faster option is Kurz’s dedicated 4000sph B1 digital DM-Luxliner, which foils directly onto dry toner or HP Indigo prints.

Inkjets for ultimate effects

Inkjet-based embellishers have tended to get all the publicity ever since MGI announced JetVarnish, a digital spot UV varnisher, at drupa 2008 (though so did Komfi, but with less fanfare). At Ipex 2010 Scodix showed the first ‘high-build’ inkjet UV varnisher, with a raised and textured effect.

MGI soon followed with a high-build model called JetVarnish 3D. A few years later both worked out how to apply foil over the raised clear polymer. Scodix still offers more effects though, including faceted gems and Cast & Cure for high-end packaging. Scodix has gone through several generations and today has standardised on the Ultra 1000 series, with six models ranging in price from about £400,000 to £1.1 million. Most of them are B2 format, but with different front end configurations for commercial print, web-to-print and carton packaging.

Kurz offers high-end digital foiling options
supporting sheet sizes up to B1

There are two configurations for most applications. The base model uses a single polymer type, which VP global sales and marketing manager Mark Nixon says is suitable for ‘75% of all possible jobs.’ The other type has four polymer feeds, with different characteristics formulated between them to adhere to pretty well any substrate. The top model is the Ultra 6000, the only current B1 format offering, with a top speed of 1000sph. There was briefly a 4000sph B1 model, the E106, but the £2 million-plus price was too much for the market to bear. Mr Nixon says that users are happy with 1000 sph, as it compares favourably with high end analogue foiling systems that use metal dies and which can take hours to make ready. MGI today is in effect a subsidiary of Konica Minolta which as of October 202 held a 42.3% stake. KM sells the range worldwide, though not exclusively. Three models are B2 format, offering up to 4200sph, one is roll-to-roll on a 420mm web, and there is a long-A3 format model that was originally called JetVarnish 3D One, which was exclusive to KM even before it increased its shareholding in MGI.

This summer the MGI-badged One has been replaced by the Konica Minolta-branded AccurioShine 3600, which is apparently the same thing with a different colour scheme, though there may be technical differences we haven’t found out yet. MGI’s enormous B1 AlphaJet, which is now available after years of development and previews, can print full p The Konica Minolta-branded AccurioShine 3600 replaces the MGI JetVarnish 3D One colour and embellish with 3D polymer and foil inline at 1800sph. So far there’s only one user, ISRA, in France, announced this year. An official launch is due in October and will be reported in Digital Printer. At LabelExpo 2019, a prototype digital cutting and creasing unit was demonstrated that may find its way onto the AlphaJet too. Germany’s foil manufacturer Kurz recently acquired the Swiss Steinemann company, whose inkjet varnish and foiling systems it was already marketing as Digital Metal. These include the sheetfed B2 DM-Smartliner for 2D flat varnishing and overfoiling and the DM-Maxliner for raised and textured effects. There are also narrow web label models. Duplo’s B3 DuSense 810 is probably the entry level for 3D varnish effects.

Duplo is very resistant to giving prices, but the launch price in 2017 was reportedly £139,000. That’s a lot less than any of the current MGI or Scodix machines, though Konica Minolta’s AccurioShine 3600 may be in the same price league. DuSense can be fitted with optional inline foiling using the Bagel MiniLam lamination/foil unit. There is now also a B2 model, the DuSense 8000, launched in May 2022, which is offered in various configurations providing the spot UV, digital foiling or both, including a pre-treatment option for expanding the types of print that can be handled.

How to sell it

With embellishment systems becoming relatively common, at least as options, the challenge is now how to get the message out to the customers – designers, brands, even high street shops, who won’t order effects that they don’t realise exist. Xerox is well aware of this, says Kevin O’Donnell, and is making a big push to support help its users develop their markets for the embellishment options on their presses. Its Genesis Initiative is a multi-level set of free offerings that aim to build the market for what it calls ‘beyond CMYK.’ This includes helping printers to market embellishment effectively, and also to understand how to price it. There are also courses for designers to learn about embellishment, and how to use it and explain it to their customers too. Mr O’Donnell says ‘The key is not just the technology. More important is market engagement, and design skills. Every printer should be looking at the ‘plus’, over and above the norm. That’s not just embellishment, but anything you can do to stand out from the crowd, even if it’s just giving a box of doughnuts to new customers! ‘Embellishment might be priced for profitable value-added business, or it might equally be priced as a loss-leader to get new business,’ he says.

‘Some 90 – 95% of your business might always be CMYK, but if the embellishment brings in new customers, you’ve got a good chance of retaining them for future CMYK work.’ Another separate initiative is what’s probably the first consultancy intended specifically at helping creatives and producers get the best out of digital embellishment. Taktiful in California has been set up by Kevin Abergel, who worked for many years for MGI. He was most recently sales director for North America, but that office closed when Konica Minolta took on sales and distribution.

He’s now established a network of consultants with practical experience of digital embellishment in North America, and is looking to expand his services into Europe and the UK soon. He’s not confining his work to MGI/Konica Minolta based systems, but across the whole range of processes and manufacturers. He says that digital embellishment systems aren’t being sold enough to customers, especially the built-in fifth units on digital presses. ‘People aren’t selling it correctly, they aren’t necessarily understanding how to pitch it or how to teach their clients how to design for it. A lot of the clients we work with at Taktiful have a fifth colour and say, ‘Yeah, I never use it. It’s just sitting there’, or ‘I’ve had this machine for two years. Maybe I’ve run 10 jobs on it’.

Overall, you ask them what percentage of jobs are they actually using it on. Typically they say less than four or five per cent. It’s a nice-to-have, but right now it’s not a need to-have because they’re not actually putting in a lot of the marketing effort needed to be able to take that off the ground. ‘But then we see some small mom and pop companies, little three, four-person shops, and embellishment is all they talk about. They go around, they talk to every restaurant, every little trophy shop or every little shoe store. They talk about how great the print could look. They say, ‘You could put in this fluorescent green on your next mailing, or let’s put in some dimensional on your menu so that you can actually feel the wood grain’. These are the people who get it and they’re the ones that are making it work for them.’

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According to the company, the Scodix Foil and Sense applications were key drivers for the investment and offers the company a widening of automation possibilities and economic benefits as well as elevating the luxury look of its products. DPP is an automation focused digital printing company based in Houten, Netherlands. It specialises in a wide variety of commercial printing applications, all of which are customisable by online shops such as PeterPrint.

In the company group, products are sold directly via web shops amongst other big resellers and online printers.

Ferry Lammerts, founder of PeterPrint and owner of DPP, said, ‘In a market where selling standard A4 leaflets is only profitable when you have a huge volume, embellishment gives you the opportunity to add value to each sheet. With the proven technology of Scodix, in combination with our HP Indigo presses, we found a perfect match. The excellent automation possibilities and great number of possible paper types signify that Scodix is the right choice for us.

‘The future in print is not just growth in volume. Growth in volume will make you busier but not necessarily more profitable or happier. It’s creating remarkable printed products by combining new techniques that add value with a continuous focus on automation. Scodix makes it possible to add value to each sheet. If you look at the range of special possibilities, we offer like digital die cutting, white ink, foil and UV varnish you know you have something more to offer than your standard MC glossy leaflet.’

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ISRA, which is based in the Drôme department, is a commercial printer that employs more than 90 people at its premies in Romans. It signed the order for its new machine in December 2021, with installation set to take place in April this year.

Previewed as far back as drupa 2012, when its ambitions were more modest, and expected to be launched at drupa 2020, the AlphaJet is described by MGI as a ‘breakthrough innovation in industrial printing’ which integrates in a single pass ‘all stages of CMYK printing, spot UV varnish and hot foil stamping, in fixed or variable data, in 2D and 3D, in a B1 format’.

ISRA says that installing the AlphaJet, which is part of the wider five year ‘France Relance’ innovation plan, confirms not only its dedication to printing but also to innovation and differentiation. General manager Jean-Pierre Chauvin explained, ‘ISRA is a very specific company, which masters internally all the printing trades, in particular offset printing, screen printing, digital printing, hot foil stamping, printed electronics and security printing.

‘These different trades allow us to offer products with high added value, by their printing quality, their personalisation, their finishing, whether they are classic or embed contactless technologies. Today, the manufacturing of our products generally requires five main steps. The AlphaJet will allow us to simplify the production flow and to free us from certain printing constraints, without breaking loads, without waste and without loss of time, with an unequalled productivity, impossible to obtain with conventional equipment.’

Christophe Jouinot, president and director of production at ISRA, added that the arrival of the AlphaJet would herald a ‘technical revolution’ for his company. He added, ‘Until now, the implementation of different equipment to realize our packagings and our cards, had for consequence incompressible production times, minimal volumes, even the management of semi-finished products. The AlphaJet will enable us to gain in reactivity, but also in quality, because of an exceptional quadri printing on a great number of supports, in photo quality, and a perfect register of the varnish and the hot gilding. Freed from various production breaks, we will be able to offer very short production times, on all types of prints, with eco-responsible products with high added value.’

Speaking from the manufacturers point of view Edmond Abergel, CEO of MGI, stressed how the press would fit in well with ISRA’s innovative ethos. ‘During our first exchanges with the ISRA teams, we were surprised by the very strong innovation DNA that carried the dynamics of the company,’ the CEO said. ‘And by its implementation by a team of experts of conventional technologies, very different from each other. At the end of a process of thorough tests and trials, these are the experts who validated the acquisition of the AlphaJet.’

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Insight have joined Monotech Systems as an official distributor of Scodix’s range of digital enhancement solutions in the country, with Scodix saying that together the two companies ‘form a strong distribution channel that reaches the full array of Indian printers.’

Insight, which was founded in 1992 in Mumbai, describes itself as India’s largest dealer for graphic arts equipment and now operates ten offices across the nation. CEO Ajay Aggarwal commented on the new partnership, ‘Scodix is a much sought-after technology in India, and we are honored to join the distribution channel. We pride ourselves on delivering equipment to our customers that will expand their success, and Scodix certainly fits this commitment between our customers and us.’

Ziki Kuly, Scodix’s Vice President for Asia, the Pacific and Japan, added, ‘We are proud to welcome Insight into the Scodix family. Insight’s passion for technology is one of the main forces behind this distribution agreement along with their reach into the Indian packaging and commercial markets.’

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The swathe of new colours includes 55 gold tones and also expands the selection in blue, green, violet and brown shades. All can reproduced as part of the software licence via swatch books that printers can print and give to their clients to demonstrate the range and for graphic designers to use to make selections. 

Color-Logic director of sales and marketing Mark Geeves said, ‘Together with Color-Logic embellishments, our 924 metallic colours provide graphic designers with unlimited ways to differentiate their clients in print. Already, Color-Logic licensed printers provide brands with economical, quick-turnaround work, and these new metallic colours only broaden the possibilities.’

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CPG is an American company that specialises in custom and speciality print and the 104cm wide (41in) digital enhancement press will assist it in these activities as well as also helping the business grow its market share of the packaging sector.

‘We’ve developed a well-earned reputation in the industry for designing and producing some of the coolest and most inventive work for our nationwide clientele, many of whom appear in the Fortune 100 to 500 lists,’ said president and CEO Darren Carlson. ‘They represent a variety of businesses, who want to stand out and are willing to invest in award-winning attention-grabbing projects.

‘The new Scodix Ultra 6000 press with its sheet size and diverse enhancement capabilities provides our clients with bold, unique products as we continue to expand our specialty print and packaging business. In addition, this press provides us the ability to transition to a complete Scodix finishing workflow solution immediately impacting our business productivity.’

The Scodix Ultra 6000, set to be installed at CPG’s Minnesota premises immediately, will allow for more highly-detailed, short-run and data-variable personalised projects with tactile applications such as embossing, foil, metallic effects and glitter.

Earl Guinter, CPG’s sales manager, added, ‘Having the Scodix Ultra 6000 press is revolutionary because it allows us to use a common, large-format sheet size across all our presses. This saves our customers time and money, while increasing the enhancement design possibilities dramatically.’

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Recent digital press introductions and developments have expanded the range of things that can be achieved in the ‘print’ pass without needing any additional finishing processes. These include additional colours, including white and metallics, as well as clear toners or inks, which can be used to add a number of effects that otherwise would be achieved using separate conventional analogue processes or, for variable work, dedicated digital finishing or embellishment devices.

Extra colours can be fluorescents, which add eye-catching colours when used as solids, or can be mixed with the usual process colours to achieve an expanded gamut of vibrant shades. Then there are additional primary colours such as orange, green or blue, which, while also expanding the overall colour gamut, are mostly aimed at better brand colour matching. There are also special inks or toners for security applications such as MICR, used in cheques and financial documents, or ‘invisible’ red that fluoresces under UV light, employed as anti-counterfeiting measures in tickets, labels or packaging on high value products.

Some digital presses now support metallic inks or toners, typically silver or gold, enabling foil-like effects to be printed (although you wouldn’t mistake them for true foiling), or mixed with the process colours to provide a metallic sparkle or sheen.

White ink or toner is not just for printing white elements on coloured stocks but can also serve as an underlay for correct CMYK image reproduction on coloured or transparent substrates. It can also be used in some presses as a background block-out on metallised substrates for a more convincing ‘foil’ look, though digital white inks don’t on the whole offer such good opacity as screen or flexo ones and may require more than one pass to achieve the desired effect. Against that is of course the fact that it’s a fully digital process, so very short runs or item-to-item variation is possible and cost-effective.

Clear ink or toner can provide fully variable ‘spot-UV’ effects, and may offer some of the protective advantages of lamination, though it is probably not cost-effective for full flood coverage. In addition, some presses support a multiple-pass build-up of texture for haptic effects; a sort-of digital equivalent to embossing, although with a quite different look and feel that lends itself to creative applications as well as accessibility ones like braille.

All these are fully variable so that the special effect or colour can be different on each impression, which may be more productive than having to run a separate post-press process, even if it can be done digitally, as described in part one of this feature, last issue.

luorescent pink is the latest addition to Xerox’s colour palette for the Iridesse and some of its other toner presses via the Adaptive Kit

On the downside, there are strict limitations on how many special colours can be used at once or in a single pass. Some presses can’t be upgraded to take them at all or require manual swapping of toners to allow second or subsequent passes, and each colour will typically incur a separate click charge. The use of extra colours doesn’t usually affect the performance of the press, though, unless multiple passes are necessary, as they might be with white, or to build up a clear texture.

Who does what

Xerox’s Iridesse is a six-colour toner press that in addition to CMYK can support any further two from a choice of metallic gold, metallic silver, clear and white, which can be printed under or over the process colours. The Versant 180 can use additional colours via an Adaptive Kit. This means swapping out the regular toner cartridges for the special colours and running work back through the press, but you get a wider choice than with the Iridesse – in addition to its metallics, white and clear, there are also fluorescent magenta, yellow and cyan toners, and the potential to use everything if you don’t mind multiple changes and passes, or to make creative use of any subset in single-pass operation.

At the entry level, Xerox has recently added the VersaLink C8000W, which offers CMY plus white printing for use on coloured media, all in a 1sqm footprint and at an ‘affordable’ price. The company intends it to be an entry point into embellishment printing. Oki also offers CMYK plus white in its A4 and A3+ ‘white toner series’ desktop colour printers, which contain a variant optimised for printing to transfer media for dye-sublimation work to textiles or suitably treated hard media, as well as CMYK plus white or clear in its Pro9000 A3+ range, which can print onto clear and heat transfer media as well as various paper stocks.

HP Indigo presses support up to seven inks simultaneously. For expanded gamut printing, the process set is complemented by orange, violet and green. The ‘speciality’ range includes silver, Premium White, light cyan, light magenta, Fluorescent and Vivid Pinks, Vivid Green, transparent, Digital Ink Primer (to expand the range of supported substrates) and Invisible Yellow. Availability varies by Indigo press model.

Kodak offers a wide range of additional toners for its Nexpress/Nexfinity line, from gamut-boosting red, green or blue to red-fluorescing and MICR inks for security applications. There’s a metallic gold and a metallic clear which can be used to create other metallic colour effects or to simulate pearlised stocks, while the normal clear can be used for spot or flood coating and in its ‘dimensional’ guise for building tactile finishes. There’s also an anti-microbial version of the clear ink. Only one additional toner can be used at a time, however. Additionally, Kodak offers an Intelligent Glossing Solution which allows sheets coated in clear to be given a ‘laminate-like’ gloss, with a further option of a matte finish via a special fuser roller.

Ricoh’s Pro C7200 sheet-fed press has a fifth colour station and can add white, clear, ‘neon’ (fluorescent) yellow or neon pink to the usual CMYK without affecting productivity. The same options are supported in Heidelberg’s Versafire-badged version of the press.

If you’re already invested in a production-level digital press, it’s unlikely that you’d want to change it just to get the extra colours, but if you’re thinking of getting a new one anyway for replacement or expansion, it might be useful to have some extra (coloured) strings to your bow. Or you might consider adding one of the entry-level devices to test the market before taking a bigger step. A number of printers have already found that the added value of the work they can produce pays for the machines quite quickly and helps sell print against ubiquitous digital media.

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