What ever happened to Ink Optimisation?

[Rtwain]

Just curious. Havent been here in awhile but there was once a ton of info in the Colour Management section about ink savings and optimisation. Now there's nothing. Did this go away or was it accepted as mainstream? I was at Graphexpo and didn't even see most suppliers: Fine Eye? Alwan? MX 360? I only saw GMG and CGS. Is this market segment dead?

[Greg_Firestone]

Ink Optimization solutions are much more prevalent now in printers than they were a few years back. I think there has been a lot of adaption and now vendors are trying to push the next buzz. I wouldn't say it's mainstream because not everyone is using it but it has become more common - just like the original buzz over plain old GCR.

I guess the ipad is the ultimate ink saving solution . . .

Greg

[SteveAgfa]

Rtwain:

Sorry we missed you at the show -
Agfa was featuring :Apogee InkSave as part of our pressroom efficiency area.

You can learn more by visiting...

www.agfagraphics.com - :Apogee InkSave

Regards,

[michaelejahn]

Just curious. <---snip--> I was at Graphexpo and didn't even see most suppliers: Fine Eye? Alwan? MX 360? I only saw GMG and CGS. Is this market segment dead?

@ Rtwain - just because an exhibitor is not featuring a technology does not mean it is dead or dying ! In our exhibit we featured QuickFit4Print - a ganging application - because it was new.

I many workflow folks have either licensed an Ink Optimization technology and offer it ( like they might offer a trapping module or screening module ) - so, it is simply part of the solution. Others, like ALWAN don't normally exhibit, and their partners ( like Compose ) show the solution in demonstrations.

Still others are 'hidden" inside as they are OEM deals - like you might have never heard of Kolor-D, but you might actually be using it...

KlearVision digital - Photo-D Automatic Photo Correction/Enhancement Software

[cosnet]

The ink optimization market is alive and kicking! It continues to be a strong market for CGS and in fact is continuing to grow. I don't agree that most companies have a solution as we are getting too many inquiries and subsequent sales for that to be the case. It is especially important for the smaller shops to be as efficient as possible and ink optimization does that. The new twist we are finding is that it is not just about ink reduction but color matching as well, which is why we have rolled ORIS Ink Saver as an option to ORIS Press Matcher. The process is so quick and easy that literally we can bring ICC like color management to the conventional press world. It helps that the conventional press market is understanding color management and that there are better press controls to improve stability. ORIS Press Matcher brings ink optimization to a new level with ink/toner savings and color matching. The digital press world and wide format we have already been very strong in and the new push on these devices is to save money. This is why CGS developed "Stabilizer' for our iterative color matching feature of ORIS Press Matcher. A feature that basically gives a digital device G7 on steroids and very low delta E to a target color space.

I think the perceived "silence" you are experiencing is that printers know who the players are and are just doing their own tests in silence. Also ink optimization brings efficiencies to a printer and nobody wants to talk about how they are saving money. Competitors will adopt it and their customers may want price concessions.

Bruce Brown - CGS

[abc]

I think one of the things now is that the mystery has gone out of it, it used to be a 'smoke and mirrors' technology, but as Devicelink profiles have become more mainstream people have understood the technology better and some even just plug a DVL into their rip and rightly or wrongly do it that way.

As mentioned before in this economic situation it's a technology that nobody can ignore, although the actual benefits are not just about the financial savings of ink