ROLLING MEADOWS, Ill. -- For KC Printing Services, Inc., a 14-employee shop in Lake Barrington, Ill., adding the Screen Truepress 344 direct imaging press was the logical next step in the company's expansion beyond color copying and toner-based printing.

"We are new to ink-on-paper, so print quality is our number-one concern," said Phil Claps, president of KC Printing. "Our customers think the quality we are able to deliver with the Truepress 344 is excellent."

After beginning life 21 years ago as a print broker, KC Printing made the strategic move into digital color printing in 2001.

"When we first branched out into printing, we used a one-color digital press and a color copier," Claps recalled. "Later, we added a wide-format printer. We produced a little bit of everything for the trade, including forms and envelops."

That initial foray into digital printing eased KC Printing's shift away from wholesale trade work toward commercial printing.

"We were ready to develop our own clientele for printing services and generate higher sales volume for ourselves," Claps noted. "We wanted to remain in the digital world, mainly because the equipment is easier to operate and there are fewer chemicals to deal with."

In 2008, KC Printing acquired a production color printer, hired an operator to run the machine and started printing larger projects than it had previously. The company became comfortable in a short time handling 5,000-sheet jobs with flyers, inserts and brochures two-up on the sheet.

The resulting growth in business brought KC Printing to the point where it could reinvest in the company to capture a bigger share of in-house printing. KC Printing researched its options carefully. In the process, the firm developed a level of confidence in both Screen's technology and service organization.

"Screen backs up its equipment with service," Claps said. "The close proximity of Screen's service center [in Rolling Meadows, Ill.] was important to us, as was the trust we developed in the company."

The Truepress 344 images processless plates on press and prints with the conventional offset process using standard inks and water. Installed at KC Printing in June 2009, the press produced more than 1.3 million impressions in its first four months of operation.

"The press is easy to operate," Claps said. "We control our print jobs as much as possible. Furthermore, the price of the inks, plates and other materials makes the printing of jobs very cost-effective."

The immediate success of the Truepress 344 was aided by KC Printing's decision to implement Spekta 2 screening. Screen's hybrid AM/FM screening method enables stronger detail in scanned photographs, smoother vignettes and truer color reproduction. Spekta 2 achieves the quality equivalent of up to 600-line screens with an ordinary setup of 175 lpi and 2,400 dpi.

"We typically print 300-line screens, but Spekta allows us to produce up to 600-line screens if we need to," Claps said. "The response from customers has been extremely positive. We have not attracted a huge number of new accounts yet, but the new clients we have added are very impressed by our quality."