Gordo - I am confused by your response. Tell me more. It sounds like you have researched these solutions. We are not a big printer and we want ink savings like everyone but we would be fools to turn our backs on quality increases. If one vendor can offer both, does that not give them and us an advantage? You sound like you believe this not to be true.
Not just researched the solutions - I was, for eleven years at Creo/Kodak, the Print Quality Marketing Manager and was also involved in the development of their ink saving solution. Previously I was Technical Director of Western Canada's largest commercial sheetfed shop.
When evaluating a change in your print manufacturing process you should first of all define your goal(s) for the change. Some vendors will try and confuse issues/goals as a way to differentiate their products. So the evaluation process needs to separate all the issues so they can be examined and if needed, tested individually.
When you wrote: "We are not a big printer and we want ink savings like everyone but we would be fools to turn our backs on quality increases" you actually bring up several important issues that should be explored.
1) Ink savings usually means cost reduction. So, how much will the solution cost to implement vs the ROI? Do you know your annual spend on ink? If you are like most printers then I doubt that you have that info. So here's an example: Commercial print shops typically spend about 1.6% of their gross earnings on ink. So, if you are a $2M dollar a year printer you spend about $32K on ink. If you reduce consumption by 15% then you'll save $4800 per year. Compare your savings to the cost of implementation to see your approximate ROI.
2) When a vendor states 15%, or 25%, or 40% ink savings - those are quantitative (measurable) statements. The vendor should be able to back up their claims with information such as how the ink savings were calculated. Are they based on press runs, the image bitmaps, comparison of contones pre and post processing, etc. What was the image content of the original file, how would the content impact ink usage? (Ink savings is in part content dependent)
2) You use the term "quality" - but I don't know how you define it. Quality is a very fuzzy term, so to evaluate its value it needs to be defined in hard terms that can be discussed.
I like how W Edwards Deming (the father of quality manufacturing in Japan) defines the term. "Quality is meeting customer expectations" The customer expectation is usually represented by the proof. If most of your presswork is done with customer supplied proofs, are the proofs done to any industry standard or specification (e.g. SWOP or GRACoL). If so, then that is "quality" expectation that you should be delivering on. If you print differently, then in that case, you are no longer printing quality. If you control the proofing, then you have the opportunity to define your own shop standard - which you can do on your own for jobs where a different print condition would enhance your customers' presswork. You also have the opportunity to offer more than one print condition which may provide you with a competitive edge.
3) If you go to a finer halftone screen (AM/XM (300 lpi+ or FM 25 micron+) you will increase reproduction fidelity - detail. You will also:
* reduce ink consumption
* increase press stability
* reduce setup time and waste
* achieve a wider color gamut (cleaner colors)
Assuming that your plate and plate imaging system can support it. Any vendor - even non-ink saving ones - can set you up to do this.
Remember though that increasing the fineness of your screening will reduce your operating latitude. It will put more demands on your print manufacturing process.
4) If you increase SIDs, your gamut will increase. So will your ink consumption. But that may be mitigated somewhat by the use of an ink saving solution.
The basics of doing that are covered here:
Quality In Print: DMaxx again you do not need to involve an ink saving vendor to print at higher SIDs.
hope this helps, gordon p
