Using a workflow to drive digital presses?

[Laurens]

I am wondering how useful a prepress workflow like ApogeeX, Prinergy, TrueFlow,.. is for handling jobs that are going to be printed on digital presses or printers (Indigo, Xeikon, Canon, Xerox,...). Many of these devices come with their own dedicated front-end system which has been optimised for driving the press but these front-ends are not as versatile as a full-blown workflow. If you have a workflow and use it for the digital presses as well: how do you use it and why? If it isn't being used for jobs sent to digital presses, that is interesting to hear as well.

[Joe]

We print straight to the RIP that came with our color copier and do not use Nexus for it.

[DigitalCrapShoveler]

I am also very interested in this topic. It seems we will be acquiring a DP at the end of this year. I have had some dealings with them about 10 years ago, an Indigo to be exact, but I am very curious how far along the workflow and technology as far as front end has progressed. The suits are finagling with Canon, Kodak and Xerox. Are they able to be controlled through Apogee X? I was under the impression they would handle like Joe's, proprietary front end.

[Joe]

I am also very interested in this topic. It seems we will be acquiring a DP at the end of this year. I have had some dealings with them about 10 years ago, an Indigo to be exact, but I am very curious how far along the workflow and technology as far as front end has progressed. The suits are finagling with Canon, Kodak and Xerox. Are they able to be controlled through Apogee X? I was under the impression they would handle like Joe's, proprietary front end.

Like I said. Ours is a color copier, not a digital press. No matter what the manufacturer claims. :cheesy:

[DigitalCrapShoveler]

I am also very interested in this topic. It seems we will be acquiring a DP at the end of this year. I have had some dealings with them about 10 years ago, an Indigo to be exact, but I am very curious how far along the workflow and technology as far as front end has progressed. The suits are finagling with Canon, Kodak and Xerox. Are they able to be controlled through Apogee X? I was under the impression they would handle like Joe's, proprietary front end.

Like I said. Ours is a color copier, not a digital press. No matter what the manufacturer claims. :cheesy:

Aren't they all just Color Copiers on steroids?

[Joe]

No. There is a difference between a REAL digital press and a REAL color copier.

Here is an interesting article over at American Printer:

Is it a COPIER, PRESS or DIGITAL PRINTING DEVICE?

[DigitalCrapShoveler]

No. There is a difference between a REAL digital press and a REAL color copier.

Yeah, okay, I understand what you're saying. The manufacturer says, your color copier is a DP, but in fact it is not. Gotcha, sorry, ...Mondays.

Good article. Thanks Joe.

[doubting_thomas]

We don't use a work flow for our Xerox DC 5000. Just spool to the rip after
imposing in InDesign or QI. I don't think the press sheets are big enough, or
complicated enough in many cases, to require a work flow. The exception in
my case would be variable data. I have Print Shop Mail on the front end, and
Xerox's Freeform on my Fiery, but I always use PSM because I'm used to it.
Freeform seems to be about the same though.

Like Joe stated, I don't care what the sales rep calls it either, it's a network printer.

[DigitalCrapShoveler]

My manager claims, it is vital to be able to run the DP from Apogee X. I tried to tell him this was not the case, but I really think since AX is the only thing he uses, that he wants some kind of control. I am more inclined to believe, one of us in Prep will run it... apart from Prepress. Or, it will be "another" output machine depending on how busy it is, and if it stays that way.

[Slappy]

Both of our Indigo 5500 machines run from their own backend RIPs. We run Prinergy for the Offset side, and have briefly toyed with routing the DI work through that, but it just wasn't worth the time to make it happen, and there really didn't seem to be any measurable benefits.

It takes alot longer to get small jobs setup in Preps, and with most of the imposition tools available in-application for the Indigo it makes more sense to stay with those tools. I'd imagine at some level, if you stray from the supplier's workflow, you'll have issues getting support too. The old blame game would be too much of an open door if they think it's the workflow causing a problem.

[elmo3]

No. There is a difference between a REAL digital press and a REAL color copier.

Here is an interesting article over at American Printer:

Is it a COPIER, PRESS or DIGITAL PRINTING DEVICE?

That article is from 2001.  Doesn't count.  While 7 years is a pittance when you go back to Gutenberg, it's 49 lifetimes in the electronic world.  Too much has changed in the electronic world, and that article has no real meaning anymore.  I mean, as long as we're there, why don't we go post some references to reviews of filmsetters or maybe Compugraphic machines?

To the topic itself, consider that workflows that drive analog printing are mostly sheet-based, while digital devices--being able to digitally change "plates" every 0.55 seconds (for example)--are really designed with the whole document in mind.  Feeding them individual sheets, imposed or not, defeats a huge purpose of the device.

A digital device that changes plates 2 per second can produce, for example, completely bound books that are ready to ship--and can do so singly, or a few at a time.  It doesn't do you much good to drive that device with Rampage, for example.

So treat it like a network printer.  Print to it from the native application.

Or get the entire document into your workflow, but pull it out before it turns into something fully committed to a platesetter.  It's probably PDF at this point, which is probably fine.

Digital isn't there to replace (analog) offset.  It's there to do things the customers (remember them?) are asking for, things the owners are willing to sell, things that cannot be done with offset.

Yes, it's true--offset doesn't solve every need, and owners want revenue.  More to the point, the customers are out there buying output from digital devices.  They might as well buy it from your shop, and help keep the doors open and the money flowing in.  It's foolish to stick your head in the sand and ignore digital, as foolish as it would be to assume that digital will replace offset.

[Joe]

Who said anything about ignoring digital?

And the article is still relevant. I was just pointing out that that what some people are calling digital presses are not really digital presses. It applied in 2001 and still applies now.

[elmo3]

Eh.  "Print manufacturing equipment" then.  Whatever.

by the way, the digital equipment that was mainstream 7 years ago is so much junk on the pile.  In that way, it does differ from offset.  The only place you're ever going to find an 80 year old piece of digital equipment, when it gets that old, is in a museum.  And it won't be functional.  In that respect, digital print manufacturing equipment differs from analog print manufacturing equipment.

I guess the question is, what unique characteristic defines a piece of manufacturing equipment as a "press"?  Next thing you know, we'll have the litho guy and the flexo guy beating on each other, with the gravure guy crying in the corner, all screaming "MINE IS! YOURS ISN'T!"

And as the article says, the guy buying the job doesn't buy a manufacturing method, he buys a print job.  So who cares what it's called?  Just don't call me later for supper, and don't pay the bill late.

[Joe]

Okay, I've diverted this topic wayward enough. I think another thing to consider is the output of these workflows. In our Nexus workflow we generate screened one-bit tiffs for our CTP and that surely would not work on our color copier. I could send it a PS file and I have before just to see if it would work and it did. It just seems like overkill to me though. Like driving finishing nails in with a sledge hammer.

[elmo3]

Absolutely.  Screened one bit TIFFs are not suited to that.

Mostly, conventional offset workflows are just as you describe--driving finishing nails with a sledgehammer.  Or, maybe more accurately, stretching carpet with a sledgehammer.  It doesn't make any sense.

Postscript and PDF are your friends in the digital world.  Virtually all of them have their own imposition, and they all do their own screening that's unique to the engine at hand.  You can color manage yourself, or you can have the system's RIP manage color.

File-print across the network and/or dropping in PDFs are the workflows of choice for digital.  If that makes it a network printer, so be it.

There are lots of ways to manufacture a product the customer is asking to buy, and sometimes there's very little commonality among the processes.