HP (www.hp.com) (Palo Alto, CA) announces new solutions and services for improving large-format printing workflows and helping customers grow market share, including a new 3M and HP-branded latex ink backed by the 3M MCS Warranty for finished graphics.

At SGIA 2010 (www.sgia.org), a leading industry conference for the sign and display industry, HP also is introducing new partner solutions certified by HP for JDF interoperability and the HP Edition of gold partner Mediawide’s Brandmark, a web-to-print offering designed exclusively for HP large-format customers.

“With more than 20 high-quality, productive large-format printer models, HP is driving the transformation from solvent-ink printing to latex and UV,” says Jan Riecher, vice president and general manager, Graphics Solutions Business – Americas, HP. “Our customers, in turn, can transform their businesses by using our top-quality print solutions and taking advantage of HP’s aggressive steps to take time and cost out of the production workflow.”

New solutions in the HP booth (2339) include the HP Scitex LX800 and LX600 printers – part of a complete selection of HP Latex Printing Technologies at the show – plus the high-volume HP Scitex TJ8600 Printer, the HP Scitex FB700 and FB500 UV-curable flatbed printers and the HP Designjet Z6200 Photo Printer. Also on display at SGIA, the HP Scitex FB7500 Printer now offers HP Print Care services to help customers maintain uptime and smooth operations with enhanced diagnostics and guidance tools, remote assistance and production information.

New HP 3M Specialty Latex Inks allow print service providers (PSPs) to produce finished graphics backed by the 3M MCS Warranty. When used with approved HP Latex Printing Technologies and 3M media, HP 3M Specialty Latex Inks offer high image quality and a wide color gamut with prints that are covered with credit or replacement of 3M materials for the life of the warranted graphics installation. This warranty complements existing warranties for the HP Scitex LX Printer series from HP and from Avery Graphics.  

HP Latex Printing Technologies reportedly deliver quality and durability comparable to solvent and eco-solvent technologies while reducing the impact of printing on the environment. As a result, HP Latex inks have gained tremendous market acceptance. To date, HP has shipped more than 3,000 latex ink printing systems, which customers have used to produce more than 100 million square feet of materials.

Additionally, HP’s booth at SGIA includes the HP Scitex LX800 Printer, which received a Must See ’Ems award from the Graphic Arts Show Company on Oct. 2, recognizing the 126-inch-wide printer’s status as one of the most compelling large-format technologies shown at Graph Expo 2010.

HP is providing updates at the show since being selected to help define open JDF standards for the large-format market as chair of The International Cooperation for the Integration of Processes in Prepress, Press, and Postpress (CIP4) Organization’s Wide Format Workgroup. The initiative is designed to resolve interoperability shortfalls between web-to-print tools, production devices, raster image processors (RIPs) and digital front ends so that they work together to streamline wide-format printing workflows for increased productivity.

In support of its activities with CIP4, HP has created a new “HP Certified for Wide Format Printing JDF Exchange” program for third-party workflow solutions. HP certification assures that workflow solutions exchanging JDF will interoperate properly with each other. This enables PSPs to easily build an e-storefront to market their services, take advantage of production automation tools to reduce costs and differentiate their service offerings through automated customer relationship management tools.
HP is announcing the first alliance partners and solutions to achieve certification through the program, including:

> Caldera CopyRIP, an easy-to-use RIP featuring fast preflight and preview features and advanced spooling control; Caldera VisualRIP+, a RIP solution for large-format print and cut, which includes unique features for higher productivity and options for cost and price management, contour or XY cutting and color calibration; and Caldera GrandRIP+, a flexible and powerful production workflow software dedicated to wide and extra-wide format print and print-to-cut professionals.

> ColorGATE Productionserver 6, the universal production RIP for digital large-format printing with easy, stable, fast and cost-effective production in high-end quality; and ColorGATE Web To Print, a powerful e-commerce system designed to operate professional online shops for digital large-format printing.

> Cyrious Software, an estimation and business management software designed to dramatically improve productivity and profitability with tools for pricing and costing, order entry, credit card processing, invoicing, production management and order tracking, shipping, inventory, accounting, customer relationship management and scheduling, marketing and sales management.

> Four Pees PrintFactory software, version 4, a complete production suite for banner, sign and super wide format printing that provides all professional job preparation and file correction tools needed to produce customer jobs faster, with minimum waste and with guaranteed results.

> GMG ColorServer, which reduces the time needed to normalize PDF files by providing automated color conversions from various color spaces; and GMG SmartProfiler to reduce the complexity of calibrating and profiling different output devices, such as digital presses or large format systems.

> ONYX ProductionHouse, version X10, which provides automated, print-only and print-and-cut workflows, 32-bit integrated color management, job preparation and archiving.

> Printable MarcomCentral, a vendor-hosted (SaaS) web-to-print system that provides an automated solution for creating, printing and managing the delivery of static, versioned and variable data pieces using predefined, press-ready PDF templates.

> The custom version of MediaWide’s Brandmark is a web-based collaborative workflow that allows printers to customize marketing collateral according to a client’s brand identity. Users can localize brand content and adapt it to different collateral types, sizes and languages across a wide range of outlets. Brandmark’s comprehensive campaign-scheduling and process management workflows simplify approvals, ordering and delivery, allowing printers to reduce time to market.

In addition to developing this version of its Brandmark solution, available only to HP customers, Mediawide is one of the newest members of the HP Graphics Solutions Partner Program.

More information about HP’s sign and display printing solutions is available at www.hp.go/gsb.