Palo Alto, Calif. – L+L Printers, one of San Diego’s leading commercial printing firms, is using HP Color Management Services and a pair of HP Indigo press 5500s to create a distinct competitive advantage by offering top quality and color consistency across offset and digital production platforms.

The company, a well-established offset print service provider known for offering top quality, entered the digital printing space with the installation of an HP Indigo press 5500 at a newly acquired Carlsbad, Calif., subsidiary in 2007. The press immediately allowed L+L to affordably produce shorter-run jobs that have the true look and feel of offset printing.

By the time the company installed its second HP Indigo 5500 at its San Diego headquarters, L+L had discovered another unique advantage. Using HP Color Management Services, the company found it could achieve a nearly perfect color match between its offset and digital presses.

“HP Color Management Services give us the capability to instantly match colors between our traditional and digital presses,” said Bob Dixon, vice president, L+L Printers. “You can actually print a copy, or 100 copies, on the digital press and each is a very close match to what it would look like in production on traditional offset.”

A high-quality match to offset commercial printing
The Color Management Services, available through the HP Graphics Services Solutions organization, automated the color matching workflow L+L employs for its digital production department. With the service, L+L digital press operators can quickly and reliably produce jobs that are near-exact matches of the firm’s offset work, ensuring L+L provides excellent customer service in proofing or production.

“With HP, print professionals who want to offer the best quality can be confident their digital print work has the consistency and rich image characteristics of high-end offset,” said Jan Riecher, vice president and general manager, Graphics Solutions Business – Americas, HP. “HP Indigo output is high-quality commercial print in virtually every sense of the term. By pairing the press technology with our unique Color Management Services, L+L Printers can save its clients time while meeting critical color requirements.”

Three hundred proofs, one excellent final result
The HP Indigo presses proved invaluable for one of L+L’s clients, a manufacturer looking to improve the relationships it had with its dealers. The client wanted to include dealers in the development of its parts catalog. To facilitate this process, L+L used its HP Indigo presses to produce 300 24-page catalog proofs for dealers to review.

As a result, the final catalog, an approximately 20,000-copy run printed on L+L’s sheetfed offset presses, incorporated valuable dealer feedback. The inclusive proofing cycle helped L+L’s client strengthen its relationship with its dealers using a catalog that closely reflects their priorities.