CHICAGO, IL -- Two years since being introduced as the lowest priced, four-color digital press on the market, the A.B.Dick Colour press is having a direct impact on printers. This is especially true with those who have discovered the financial incentives available for providing customers high quality, short-run 4-color work with extremely fast turnaround times. Now, A.B.Dick (booth #3329) is adding two new elements to this press, just in time for the Print 01 show, September 6-13 in Chicago. Having enjoyed success with its Digital PlateMaster line of direct-to-plate devices, A.B.Dick is extending the ScanMaster digital scanning solution to the Colour press. In addition, the company is marketing a Watkiss Vario document finishing system with off-line finishing capability, making Colour a total solution provider. "Printers across the nation now realize the tremendous value an A.B.Dick Colour digital press can present to their shop. It sets them apart from competitors when everything else is considered equal," said Ken Newton, A.B.Dick Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer-Equipment. "At $149,000, printers can write their own ticket for greater profit- ability. By adding ScanMaster and the document finishing system to a press with an abun- dance of digital offset technology, the sky is the limit for developing new revenue streams." The ScanMaster modular system is a time saving de-screening process that provides off-the-glass capabilities. It allows the A.B.Dick Colour press to input pre-printed, hard copy materials into a digital workflow, and be printed on-demand. ScanMaster accomplishes more than scanning an entire page. Printers can import and manipulate hard copy images, text, line art and tints in the digital workflow, and maintain the option to use color, black and white, or screened originals and text in the final job before integrating these elements into a digital document. Using a simple graphic interface, a printer does not need different computer programs to scan, manipulate or layout the page. ScanMaster is designed to also eliminate moiré problems on previously printed originals. The Watkiss Vario document finishing system will help transform digital printing into high value stitched booklets. It comes with an automatic BookMaster staple, fold and trim booklet maker, and uses patented SlimVAC rotary vacuum feed bins to collate a wide range of papers. It also provides flexible workflow and is more productive running at full speed with off-line finishing. Available with five bins to start, it can make booklets from pre-collated sets or used a regular collator for batched sets. The A.B.Dick Colour press will be a stronger unit with these enhancements. Customers continue to call out its existing high quality, the ability to print on multiple substrates, and its tremendous performance in delivering on-demand, quick turnaround short-run work. "The quality is outstanding and it is a very flexible press," said Brad Burt, general manager for National Beverage Screen Printers. The Williston, SC-based company does color screen printing of vending machine strips for soft drink giants Coca-Cola and Pepsi. "It's great on shorter runs. Our business is the kind where fast turnaround is absolutely necessary. Every job is different. Some times we run 24 or 26-up, sometimes we need to swap it from one job to another in a minute. It produces 1,000 sheets per hour and that makes it more cost-effective than the Heidelberg QuickMaster it replaced." When he installed his A.B.Dick Colour press earlier this year, Michael Feeley at Printing Dimensions in Dayton, OH saw it as a golden opportunity to move from the toner world into the digital universe. "Two years ago, we bought what was then a state-of-the-art color copy machine," recalled Feeley, president of the company where he has worked the last 17 years. "I like the quality and four-color capability the A.B.Dick Colour press gives me. We've grown to where we do commercial printing and digital prepress.We have repeat clients who want on-demand work done for them in hours. With the A.B.Dick Colour's digital offset technology, we keep our Fortune 500 and ad agency clients happy by doing more work with greater consistency." In Seattle, Mike Thomas of forcolorprinting is doing something completely different with his A.B.Dick Colour press. Besides his shop's printing needs, he's reached out and made alliances with 53 quick printers in the area and developed his own marketing system catalogue for the digital press. His work as a trade shop for them is paying big dividends. "We wanted offset technology instead of thermal because I think the quality is better. I also like its collation capability for perfect bound books and the variable data module. We'll eventually do more variable data work in the future," said Thomas. "We've seen a huge upturn in our volume on this press since more short-run, targeted work is being done in this area. A typical run is 1,000 pieces or less."