Hi, my name is Jessica Shanner with Arkansas Graphics and today, I would like to take a minute to introduce you all to our newest digital press. The HP Indigo 7900.
This press produces off-set quality work but at digital speeds and cost-effectiveness. Some of the newest innovations that this press includes are color matching capabilities, print productivity, and expanded application range.
My name’s Jordan Pannell and I’m the primary operator of the HP Indigo 7900. So, the Indigo is actually classified as a digital offset press, meaning that it implies the principals of off-set printing as well as digital printing. This press works off of a process called electrophotography. Each of the inks has conductivity levels and their conductivity level basically suggests how the ink is going to adhere to the paper. The internals of this press are pretty conventional in the fact that it has drums with a blanket and impression paper and a plate. After the ink is laid on the paper, it stays on the drum for two more revolutions, constantly getting heat applied to it so the printed piece, when it comes out of the end of the press, it’s dry to the touch. In that regard, it’s not very similar to an offset press. I don’t need a lot of drying time. Less drying time means quicker turnaround time for the customer.
A typical digital press runs four colors. C, M, Y, K. Well, the Indigo runs seven color stations. The C, M, Y, K and but it also includes a transparent ink station, a white ink station, and a specialty spot color matching station. Given that the HP Indigo has seven color stations, we are able to cover over 97% of the color gamut. Therefore, if you had a special color that you would like to include, say Coca-Cola Red, we could throw that in and have it printed and ready to go for you.
So, why do we have a transparent ink station? Well, the transparent ink allows us to print raised ink on the paper. This creates a textured effect that you would normally not have coming off a digital press. Apart from the raised ink, we can also print embossed style. Now, this is a complete breakthrough in digital printing. This is much more cost effective for the customer. The HP Indigo is certified to print on over 3,000 media substrates.
So, speaking of the textured effects that we were discussing earlier, here are some samples of printed products using the transparent ink. Here is a baby shower invitation that we recently printed on the pearlized stock. On the back here, these dots are actually raised giving it that additional feel and texture. These samples are what I was discussing earlier, the digital embossing. Next, we have the white ink that I was discussing.
Here you can see that we can adjust how many hits of white ink we want. Here’s one, two, three, and four hits of white. Four being the most opaque. Again, no other digital press prints white ink.
Here at Arkansas Graphics, we are very excited at the possibilities that this new press, the HP Indigo 7900, is opening up to our customers. If you have any questions, please feel free to call us and we will gladly assist.
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