By Melissa Donovan
The bar is raised high for accurate color—and prints that standout. One way to achieve this is through flatbed printers that add ink channels beyond CMYK. Green, orange, red, gray, violet, neons, and even white are all excellent untraditional colors that help in achieving unique digital printed product.
Print providers from any background, offering all types of applications find these flatbeds advantageous to their print shop. “A majority of print providers benefit from the expanded color gamut offered with colors beyond CMYK. Customers expect personalized and unique print products, and colors beyond CMYK allow print providers the ability to produce vibrant and accurate colors to meet high demands where color accuracy is critical. Print shops that offer customers more options can tackle more demanding projects that require specific colors they would normally have to turn away, therefore improving customer retention and fostering customer loyalty,” asserts David Lopez, product manager, Professional Imaging, Epson America.
The June issue of Digital Output includes a Sign Business column discusses the benefits of flatbeds that offer ink sets beyond CMYK. Here we share some specific models from vendors interviewed in that piece.
Canon U.S.A., Inc.
The Arizona 1300 GT/GTF/XTF Series Large Format UV Flatbed Printer is available in either FLOW technology or classic vacuum options. Its four-, six-, or eight-channel models include support for CMYK plus white, varnish, light cyan, and light magenta ink. These extra ink channels support the company’s brightest white ink ever and an optically clear varnish. The eight-channel Arizona 1380 adds additional support for light cyan and light magenta for enhanced image quality.
DigiTech
The Texas LT/X2 Series distributed by Canon and manufactured by DigiTech is a stationary flatbed capable of over 3,000 square feet per hour. It is available in an eight printhead configuration with CMYK, ten printhead configuration with CMYK and white or orange or varnish, and 12 printhead configuration with CMYK plus white and orange or CMYK plus white and varnish.
Direct Color Systems (DCS)
The DCS Direct Jet line uses white and a clear primer, which is standard on all Direct Jet products. The primer has several uses across a wide array of applications. The most known uses are to build ink height when producing braille but other variations include building relief for highly textured prints, clear only on colored substrates to give the illusion of metal, or to reveal the underlying substrate color. It can also be jetted on top for a variety of effects. The clear also serves as a primer as it is the same as the ink but with no pigment so it increases adhesion to a wider variety of substrates.
Epson
Epson’s SureColor V7000 UV flatbed printer features ten-color UltraChrome UV ink, which includes red, opaque white, and varnish to deliver bright, colorful prints with low graininess and smooth gradation. The ink sets allow for an expanded color gamut to better match branding color requirements. The white ink is ideal for producing stand out results on transparent and dark media and the included varnish helps to create visual experiences and tactical prints for clients.
HP Inc.
HP Latex water-based inks offer a high color gamut, so many extra colors/channels are not required. Light cyan and light magenta are available on HP Latex R Series flatbed printers.
Roland DGA Corporation
The company’s newer UV flatbeds, such as those offered in the VersaOBJECT CO Series and the new VersaOBJECT MO-240, feature expanded gamuts. Adding new orange, green, and red ECO-UV 5 inks extend the entire color space, to not only better match specific brand colors but also other challenging hues like violet. This wider color gamut allows for more color choices and richer, more vibrant prints, while still maintaining neutral grays, smooth gradations, and natural skin tones.
In addition, having a wider color space allows the print operator and designer to print more spot colors. Different print manufactures have varying color spaces with their ink sets. Roland chose to add orange and red UV ink options so users could provide more color output in the “warmer” hues. Adding orange and red inks allows the flatbeds to produce more colors on the opposite side of the printer/ink color spectrum. This expands the color gamut by approximately 20 percent over the base CMYK ink set.
StratoJet USA
StratoJet offers a wide spectrum of ink colors with nine more options beyond regular CMYK to choose from which are orange, green, red, purple, white, light magenta, light cyan, light black, varnish, fluorescent magenta, and yellow.
swissQprint
White, varnish, orange, violet, green, bright orange, neon yellow, and neon pink are on swissQprint flatbeds. These colors are used to elevate and extend color gamut, hit branded colors with ease, and to wow customers. Color beyond CMYK requires no additional maintenance with swissQprint, all it takes is the same five-minute process at the beginning and the end of a shift similar to running CMYK inks.
Flatbeds with Color
Specialty colors extend color gamuts, which is important any print provider looking to achieve accurate brand colors. Add a pop of color with specialty inks in flatbeds.
Jun2024, Digital Output
