Combines Grand Sherpa 64, Agfa Editions Of Onyx Postershop And ProductionHouse With The Latest Agfajet Materials. Mortsel, Belgium – 23 September 2002 – At Photokina (25-30 September, Cologne, Germany), Agfa will present the latest innovations in large-format colour printing. Agfa will show the Grand Sherpa 64 and Sherpa 24m, Agfa Editions of the Onyx PosterShop and ProductionHouse and the latest AgfaJet materials. These large-format printing (LFP) solutions are designed for photographers, photographic studios and minilab operators who want to extend their range of services. For users with high LFP throughput requirements, the Agfa Edition Onyx PosterShop 5.6 with its newly designed, intuitive user interface is the ideal solution. It includes both a PostScript RIP plus a raster RIP, and offers a host of professional, user-friendly tools for job management and for ensuring the desired results in poster printing. For example, the software offers functions for scaling, cropping, rotating, direct colour corrections and calibration. There are also preflighting tools for easy checking of the print job before printing. These not only help to avoid remakes but also ensure that optimum use is made of the LFP media. For users with even higher throughput requirements for poster printing, Agfa will be presenting a comprehensive turnkey package at Photokina 2002, with the Grand Sherpa LFP system bundled with the Agfa Edition of the Onyx ProductionHouse software RIP. ProductionHouse offers a range of functions in addition to Agfa Edition of PosterShop 5.6. The Agfa Edition of Onyx ProductionHouse is currently the only RIP on the market capable of simultaneous RIPping and printing of two PostScript and/or raster files. Even greater flexibility in job preparation for poster printing is offered by the extended functions, such as material management, calibration and step & repeat. This turnkey solution permits a high degree of automation, and at the same time offers experienced users all the flexibility needed to deal with individual output requirements. Agfa Sherpa Printing Systems At Photokina Agfa will feature the Agfa Grand Sherpa 64 with a printing width of 165 cm. This innovative piezoelectric drop-on-demand system offers resolutions of 360 x 360 dpi, 720 x 720 dpi und 1,440 x 1,440 dpi, together with variable dot size. The Grand Sherpa systems can print with up to six dye or pigment-based multidensity inks, giving photorealistic results with smooth blends and difficult colours such as skin tones. New at Photokina is the Sherpa 24m offering higher printing speed and resolutions up to 1,440 x 2,880 dpi. The Sherpa 24m can be fitted with an additional black ink cartridge as well, thus significantly increasing its ink capacity. AgfaJet Materials Agfa will show three new materials at Photokina 2002. The first of these is the fast-drying Universal Instant Dry Photograde Paper (UIPP)—"universal" in that it gives excellent results both on piezoelectric and on thermal printing systems, and can be used either with dye based or pigment based inks, thanks to its special inkjet acceptance coating. The Universal Photograde Paper (UPPd) is suitable for printing with dye based inks on both piezo and thermal printers. Finally, the same universality is offered by the Universal Backlit Film (UBFd). Agfa will also demonstrate the high quality of the AgfaJet range of materials already available for LFP applications.