HP today unveiled an expanded portfolio of digital presses – including the industry’s largest-format, most productive sheet-fed platform – enhancing its leadership position in photo applications.  

The new HP Indigo 10000 Digital Press is a new B2 size format press (750 x 530 millimeters [mm] / 29.5 x 20.9 inches) that enables new oversize photo applications and efficient production of standard-size photo products.

The HP Indigo 10000, along with the entire extended portfolio of HP Indigo digital presses, will be displayed at drupa 2012 (May 3-16 in Düsseldorf, Germany).

Other new HP Indigo photo solutions include:

• The HP Indigo W7250 Digital Press, a high-volume, roll-fed device offering 33 percent faster throughput⁽¹⁾ and new color management features.
• The HP Indigo 7600 Digital Press, a sheet-fed device that features new unique high-value effects for creating differentiated offerings and a new Light Black ink for higher-quality black-and-white photo printing.⁽²⁾
• The HP Indigo 5600 Digital Press, a new press that can produce photo products on synthetic, colored and transparent substrates.
• The HP Indigo WS6000p, a web-fed press with new finishing solutions to replace production of silver halide cut prints and portraits.

Digital printing and photography in the social media age
“Thanks to the immense popularity of smart phones, photo apps and social networks, people are now taking and sharing more digital photos than ever before, creating huge portfolios of images they can use for photo books, cards, calendars and keepsakes,” said Christopher Morgan, senior vice president, Graphics Solutions Business, HP.

According to industry reports,⁽³⁾ social libraries will hold about 140 billion photos by the end of this year, and 25 percent of social media users say they would buy a printed photo product.
“HP Indigo presses continue to be the leading choice for the photo specialty market because of our superior image quality and reliability, which becomes especially critical during peak holiday periods,” Morgan added. “With the improved productivity of our new solutions, our photo customers will be able to handle growing print volumes and reach untapped new markets.”

HP Indigo W7250, the solution for the highest volume photo customers
Building on the success of the HP Indigo W7200 in the photo space, where the press has been deployed by five of HP Indigo’s largest customers, the new HP Indigo W7250 offers incremental value to photo customers.  

For photobooks, typically the most quality-demanding photo specialty product, the new press includes new color monitoring technologies for greater color consistency between the press’s two print engines.⁽⁴⁾  

For other products, the option to produce color jobs with 33 percent higher throughput⁽⁵⁾  using the HP’s Enhanced Productivity Mode (EPM) can increase job volume per shift, better handling production peaks.

Designed for printing up to 10 million full-color, A4/letter size pages per month, the 340-mm (13.4-inch) wide roll-fed press offers the exceptional quality and productivity needed for dedicated, high-volume photo applications.

The press will be available worldwide in June. Existing HP Indigo W7200 users can add EPM and other HP Indigo W7250 features through an optional upgrade that will be available this summer.

Improved grayscale imaging and new special effects
The HP Indigo 7600 Digital Press prints 120 A4/letter-size pages per minute (ppm) in its standard production mode, but can also provide 33 percent faster throughput of 160 pages per minute using EPM.⁽⁶⁾  It is based on the popular HP Indigo 7000 series sheet-fed press platform used by many leading photo merchandise providers.   

The HP Indigo 7600 can produce superior-quality grayscale imaging for black-and-white photos using a new Light Black ink together with ElectroInk black, meeting the requirements of the most discerning professional photographers.  The HP Indigo 7600, which will be commercially available at drupa, also features:

• Raised print, using multiple layers of ink, creating images raised up to 50 microns from the sheet.
• Textured effect, embossing or debossing the sheet with a mold created digitally on the press in under three minutes.
• Digital watermarking, for subtle, special visual effects.
• Compatibility with Color-Logic software for metallic effect imaging using white ink.
• Compatibility with more than 2,500 coated, uncoated and specialty media currently certified for use on the HP Indigo 7000 and 5000 series presses, including substrates specifically suited to photo specialty and silver halide replacement.

The press also can be integrated with the Lasermax Roll Systems PageReady system, an in-line or near-line cutter, stacker and slitter.

Momentum in portrait printing with HP Indigo WS6000p
HP has expanded customers’ photo opportunities with the HP Indigo WS6000p Digital Press – a simplex solution that is deployed by leading customers to produce applications including run-of-one photobook covers, dust jackets, calendars and cards. In addition, it represents a high-quality, economical alternative to silver halide professional portrait and consumer prints printing.

The 340-mm (13.4-inch) wide, roll-fed press can be configured with an optional in-line GMP LAMIMASTER-34 laminator for professional portrait quality with luster effect or glossy finish for consumer prints on a range of HP Indigo-certified photo media including real photo paper. Multiple photographic media are available for the silver halide replacement applications, including papers from new HP Preferred Media Partner Mitsubishi Paper Mills, the first paper mill in the Asia-Pacific region with this status.

Available now, the HP Indigo WS6000p model features HP Indigo-exclusive six-color digital press photo imaging using Light Cyan and Light Magenta inks. The light inks reduce granularity, providing smoother images and tone transitions,⁽⁷⁾ as well as a true photo look and feel. The press can produce 4,800 six-color, 203 x 254 mm (8x10 inch) prints per hour, or more than 25,000 100 x 150-mm (4 x 6-inch) prints per hour, enabling a single press to replace multiple silver halide minilabs.

New business opportunities with the HP Indigo 5600 Digital Press
The HP Indigo 5500 Digital Press is the best-selling press in Indigo’s history, with more than 1,500 units produced since the product’s launch in May 2007. HP is building on the success of this press with the new HP Indigo 5600 Digital Press.

Available now, the HP Indigo 5600 runs at 68 ppm in standard color mode, 136 ppm for two-color jobs and 272 ppm for mono jobs. In addition, the press features EPM, allowing color printing at 90 ppm.⁽⁸⁾

The press features an optional “One Shot” printing mode enabling customers to use the press to produce special applications printed on Teslin, PVC (polyvinyl chloride), PET (polyethylene terephthalate), PC (polycarbonate) and other synthetic substrates. The press switches easily between regular and One Shot printing modes.

Most HP Indigo 5600 and 7600 features will be available as optional field upgrades to existing HP Indigo 5500, 7000 and 7500 presses in summer 2012.

Breakthrough productivity in high-end photo merchandise
With the wider-format HP Indigo 10000, customers can print oversize photo products, as well as at least twice as many photo pages per sheet as compared with other HP Indigo sheetfed presses.

Available in 2013, the HP Indigo 10000 prints 3,450, four-color B2 sheets per hour in its standard production mode, and 4,600 color sheets per hour using EPM. The press’s size format and print speeds – combined with new automation, diagnostics and ink and media supply features – allow high throughput and lower unit production costs.

• Advanced, closed-loop quality control systems on the press include a new registration camera, an in-line spectrophotometer and HP Vision System technology.
• The HP Indigo 10000 prints on the more than 2,500 coated, uncoated and specialty media currently certified for use on HP Indigo 7000-series sheet-fed presses including true photo base paper used in silver halide production.

Stronger end-to-end photo workflows
HP also unveiled workflow solutions for HP Indigo presses that streamline image processing and production floor management. HP SmartStream and HP SmartStream Solutions Partner Program workflow solutions for HP Indigo presses include:

• New versions of the HP SmartStream Production Pro Print

Server featuring advanced load balancing capabilities, an online press interface, integrated support for HP’s Hiflex Webshop web-to-print tool, and improved job batching, impositioning and auto-trapping features.⁽⁸⁾

• New versions of the HP SmartStream Director workflow management solution, HP SmartStream Designer variable-data design and impositioning software, and the HP SmartStream Production Analyzer management solution.
• HP SmartStream Production Center, a new production management system that addresses the challenges of producing and delivering high volumes of short run jobs, reducing turnaround time and increasing profitability. HP SmartStream Production Center unifies multiple job streams, shows real-time, detailed end-to-end production floor status, and facilitates managing job progress and priority.  

Record-breaking peak season print volume
The HP Indigo 10000, W7250, 7600, 5600 and WS6000p models extend HP Indigo’s status as the leading technology for the photo merchandise market.⁽⁹⁾ Last year, HP Indigo production hit a new record in the market’s annual October-December peak production season, a 20-percent increase over the 2010 peak season.

The HP Indigo photo portfolio complements a broader, world-class range of HP photo technologies, including HP Designjet Z Series large-format printers for professional photography output, in-store HP Retail Publishing Solutions kiosks and minilabs used at leading retailers, and the world’s most popular consumer photo printers.

More information is available at www.hp.com/go/HPPredrupa12, www.hp.com/go/drupa and through the HP Graphic Arts Twitter feed at www.twitter.com/hpgraphicarts and YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/hpgraphicarts. Join or follow the conversation using the #HPdrupa hashtag.

HP also is discussing its news on March 14 at 11 a.m. ET in a webinar taking place at www.hp.com/go/historynow.

1. Compared to the HP Indigo W7200 press printing at four-color speed.
2. Compared to other HP Indigo press models using process-black HP ElectroInk.
3. Based on HP-internal industry research and reporting from 1000memories.com.
4. Pages are printed two-up. Throughput rates equate to 3,200, 330 x 482-mm (13 x 19-inch) sheets per hour in four colors, or 4,800 sheets per hour in Enhanced Productivity Mode.
5. 320 A4/letter-size pages per minute, two-up, as compared to 240 pages per minute.
6. Comparison based on prints produced with CMYK plus light cyan and light magenta inks, compared to prints produced with CMYK inks.
7. Pages are printed two-up. Throughput rates equate to 2,070 330 x 482-mm (13 x 19-inch) sheets per hour in four colors, or 2,700 sheets per hour in Enhanced Productivity Mode.
8. Compared to previous versions of the HP SmartStream Production Server.
9. HP-internal estimates based on data from Photographic Consultants Ltd.