Digital People

Sparta Press

Sparta are matching the quality of their Komori presses on a HP Indigo machine

Sparta Press (Blackfen) Ltd were founded in 1954, the company has been run as a family business ever since, encompassing the changes from ‘hot metal’ right through to the current ‘digital age’. In their early years magazine production accounted for the major proportion of turnover, however their policy of continuous investment has enabled them to develop a varied customer base with ever increasing requirements. As you walk around Sparta you can see this investment, state of the art Agfa CTP system, high quality proofing devices all driven by the very latest version of Agfas Apogee X workflow. Komori Lithrone 28 utilising CIP3 technology, the finishing department is the same, this is a very well equipped printing company.

Their printing and finishing departments are made up of high quality equipment manned by experienced operators who have a genuine concern for the finished job. A large proportion of their work is printed using Agfa CristalRaster Stochastic Screening giving minimal dot gain and near photo quality images.

The decision to move into Digital Printing was not taken lightly, in fact it took over two years, when you see the type of work they produce you can understand why.
Dave Hill Managing Director of Sparta said “We knew that sooner or later we would have to get a Digital Press in order to satisfy our ever growing client list. Everything we looked at was either too expensive or not good enough quality. Our clients expect quality and we have set ourselves certain standards, I would not be happy sending out a job that is not up to scratch. We seriously looked at Digital over a two year period going on countless demonstrations but just couldn’t find what we were looking for. In fact we had come to the conclusion that the quality we wanted was not available for less than the price of a 4 bed semi. Then saw the Digital Peoples advert in a magazine and went over to their showroom. After numerous visits running tests we realised that a HP Indigo 1000r was the machine for us. At £70,000 for a six colour machine it was affordable and the quality was superb.
The installation took two days and then the training began, we took to the Press like a Duck to Water, its amazing how much like a Litho Press it is. Suction feed, Blanket, Plate, any Printing problems you just think Litho. The Indigo machine is actually an Offset Press and as such I suppose it should be pretty similar, at least if you do get a mark on the Print you can resolve the problem without the need to call an engineer, the whole thing is completely accessible.

The Digital People have a truly excellent team of people who have been a pleasure to do business with, the training was very thorough and when the trainer left we felt really comfortable with the machine. They have been back on several occasions helping us through the initial period, when the first rush job came in from our biggest client they came in to ensure it went out right and on time.

Everything we do in our business goes through our Apogee workflow and the Indigo is no exception, Agfa came in along with the Digital People and linked them up. So we can now proof on the Indigo, or if the client needs a job yesterday we can supply say 200 copies printed on the Indigo and then the other 4800 in a couple of days printed on our Litho Presses. This is done using the same Ripped data so we have no worries about the content changing. What’s really amazing is that we can actually match the quality too, Digital People set up the press to allow for the Dot gain we get on our Komori. The results are astounding, it is very difficult to tell which machine they have been printed on with the naked eye.

In the first two weeks of having the Indigo installed we had more interest shown in it than we have had in the last ten years with our Litho machines. Old customers we had not heard from for ages just started to appear out of the woodwork.

Short-run digital printing complements our existing litho based business by filling a gap in the service we provide to our clients. Smaller quantities become a viable option because the start-up costs are so much lower than conventional printing. If you only want 50 full colour business cards digital printing can provide them at a realistic price. Another advantage of digital print is that anything from a mailshot to a financial report can be personalised, and by the use of variable data, business cards to brochures can be given the personal touch by changing names and addresses, colour and images.
Digital print remains competitive for some items of print in quite large quantities, but inevitably there comes a point where litho becomes more economical. As we have both options in-house, as well as our state-of-the-art Workflow system, our clients are guaranteed the most cost effective, and accurate, answer – all under one roof!

How is HP Indigo technology able to match Litho for quality?
Today, the HP Indigo Digital Offset Colour printing process is the only variable imaging printing technology that can equal or exceed the quality, colour range and substrate compatibility of conventional offset lithographic printing.
Though some xerographic processes can produce high gloss toner images, they cannot match the gloss of the substrate surface, thereby producing high "gloss contrast"- which is perceived as poor quality. HP’s liquid ElectroInk uses oil to bind and distribute its pigment-carrying particles, which are about one micron in size, and consequently capable of creating much finer detail and thinner printed ink films. Xerographic presses require multiple printing units. Single sided models have four printing units, one per colour, and double-sided presses have eight printing units - four on each side of the paper path. Therefore an important consideration when making comparisons between these and the single unit HP Indigo presses is simplicity. HP’s colour switching technology enables single station printing presses, which results in compact presses, less parts to maintain, lower potential for things to go wrong, and a more accurate colour registration. Ultimately, the key issues for organizations investing in digital colour printing center on quality, speed, cost per page, versatility and product range. HP’s technology places it as a leading contender in all these respects. So, the customer has choices to make: if the customer requires offset quality, the choice is between mechanical offset printing and HP Digital Offset Colour printing. If the customer requires digital printing, the choice is between xerographic-quality digital printing, HP’s offset-quality digital printing. However, if the customer requires digital printing of offset quality, there is only one choice: HP Digital Offset Colour printing.

Dealing with dot gain
Dot gain - the tendency for printed dots and lines to spread out and enlarge as the ink image passes through the pressure of transfer - is consistent and predictable on HP Indigo Digital Offset Colour presses. HP Indigo presses have built-in dot gain compensation which corrects the exposed dot size so that it prints to the desired size. In addition, HP Indigo presses automatically adjust the optical density (i.e. appearance in terms of lightness or darkness) and dot size so that they always appear the same, copy after copy. With a conventional offset lithographic press, there are wider fluctuations during a run caused by factors that include: fluctuating ink and water temperature; water/ink balance and their tendency to emulsify; plate and blanket wear; and atmospheric humidity altering the absorbency of the paper. Neither automatic nor manual adjustment can completely iron these out, because there is always a time lag between the problem appearing and the adjustment taking effect, during which many copies are printed. With HP Indigo presses there are fewer operating variables, and the optical density of the printed image can be electronically set by the operator within a wide operational range. Once set, a proprietary closed loop mechanism, called Colour Adjust, regulates and monitors the print density and the dot size in real time throughout the job run. Just as importantly, Colour Adjust will remember the adjustments for repeat runs in future, meaning that a repeat job will be identical to the original - this is difficult to achieve with lithography which depends to a great extent on operator skill.

Digital People: 0845 130 1445
Sparta Press: 020 8303 2064