Digital Printing Services
High-Quality Digital Printing
Chromagraphics has one of the largest digital presses in the industry, the Xerox® Igen 150 Press (14.33” x 26”) with Igen 150 software compliance. The quality of this press in combination with this software makes it regarded as the highest quality and most reliable machine in the industry. Another differentiator for Chromagraphics and our Igen is that we are one of the few printers that uses matte toner. This matte toner yields the closest look to conventional printing than any other digital print workflow available. Once our clients saw the difference between the matte toner and typical gloss toner, we stopped offering gloss toner by our client’s demand. The quality of the matte toner is unmatched and seeing is believing. If you’d like to receive samples of the same artwork printed on Igens with both matte versus gloss toner, click here.
The large size and throughput capability of this machine also allows us to produce your work more effectively than most other digital presses. Because of this, it enables us to price our digital work very competitively. Our Igen press can also print on the widest range of stocks available going up to 18pts thick and stocks with heavy textured surfaces! We can also print on specialty types of substrates, synthetic stocks and pre-manufactured forms such as magnet and ID card forms, labels, CD and DVD labels and many other specialized products.
Why Digital?
A common question we’re asked is when should a job print digitally versus conventionally and vice versa. From the digital perspective the answers could fall into three basic categories: cost, reverse quality issues and whether the design has variable content that requires digital production.
Low cost when quantity is low
As print quantities have decreased overall due to tightening marketing budgets, preventing obsolescence and more targeted marketing approaches, digital print production has become much more prevalent. Lower costs for lower quantities was the initial primary reason digital print production was developed. It still is a powerful differentiator as smaller jobs which would have been unfeasible to previously print can now be produced very cost effectively.
When digital printing first arrived on the scene, the quality of those initial machines came in question versus conventional printing. With the technological advancements within the digital press manufacturing arena, that claim is no longer true. There are many examples of when digital printing will result in much higher quality than conventional printing. Jobs with heavy coverage on uncoated or heavily textured stocks will reproduce better digitally than conventionally. There is virtually no dot gain and absorption when printed digitally. Your imagery will appear much sharper and much less muddy than the same if printed conventionally. Keeping running and repeating graphics to the same consistent color throughout all pages and/or elements of a piece is always a challenge when printing conventionally. This is not a problem when printing digitally; all colors will match throughout your project and through the entire print run. Certain mechanical conventional printing issues are totally eliminated when printing digital. Therefore, inline inking compromises, ghosting and gas ghosting are non-issues. Keep in mind that there are real situations when you can expect higher quality when printing digital.
When product specs will yield a higher quality product than conventional printing
Variable color copy or integrated variable content
If you plan to use variable content beyond simple black inkjetting/lasering in a clear white area, then digital printing will be your required workflow. Below are a few examples of incorporating variable content into some clever direct mail pieces. A more comprehensive look at the different categories of variable content can be found here.