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Kodak’s Nanopigment Technology

It’s about getting out of your box.

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Kodak’s Nanopigment Technology It’s about getting out of your box. Darek Johnson

Writing, whether it’s technical, news or fiction, is an extremely human endeavor. No teams or machines produce high-quality writing. As for the human part, it’s either fortunate or unfortunate that, over time, and as a writer gains knowledge and expertise on a subject, he or she sometimes expresses opinions some readers regard as ill-considered. Readers don’t always share a writer’s point of view.

Contrastingly, a frequent complaint among writers isn’t about readers as much as the commercialization of the craft of writing. Newspaper writers, for example, say they’re reined in if they speak unkindly of high-dollar advertisers, and novelists seem to find better opportunities by writing books in today’s common movie format (hero/predicament/revenge), than, say, recording a chronological series of events. Also, it helps novelists to have television charisma. And to be blessed by Oprah.

This isn’t the same as Sears Roebuck pulling its ads when Politically Incorrect’s host, Bill Maher, after Sept. 11, described the U.S. military as “cowardly.” Perhaps ABC should ask the comfortable Mr. Maher to broadcast from Haifa or Kandahar.

In any case, it’s interesting to see a writer get out of his or her box. Alicia Mundy, in the March 25 issue of Editor and Publisher magazine, reported on writer Thomas L. Friedman’s colleagues response to his Middle East peace proposal. Friedman, a two-time Pulitzer prize winner and winner of the National Book Award, is the author of From Beirut to Jerusalem and The Lexus and the Olive Tree. As a New York Times columnist, he may be America’s foremost commentator on Middle East terrorism and globalization.

These illustrations display some of Kodak Professional’s 5260 inkjet printer’s high-tech components. Because of recent developments, the 5260 printheads — and those found in several other types of inkjet printers — operate as extremely miniature, digitally controlled (dot-by-dot) sprayguns. The smallest dot, 3pl, about one-fourth the thickness of a human hair, is from Epson’s (Long Beach, CA) Ultra MicroDot printhead; for speed, consider the Aprion (Netanya, Israel) MAGIC printheads that fire up to 25,000 droplets per second.

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So, how does an important guy like Friedman get into trouble?

He got out of his box. As a journalist, he offended other journalists by publishing his ideas for a Mideast — Palestine/Israel — peace solution. Mundy reported that the press industry’s response — meaning other journalists, not President Bush or influential people within the international community — felt Friedman had crossed a line. She says that some newspaper writers see reporting as one thing, but suggesting political solutions to an international crisis as quite another.

It wasn’t Friedman’s suggestion, nor was it his writing style. Rather, it was that he did something unconventional — he crossed the line, he got out of the box.

Meanwhile, did you see this? The Digital Printing & Image Association’s (DPI) named the Kodak Professional 5260 inkjet printer as its product of the year. The Kodak 5260, an “out of the box” machine, was one of DPI’s four Product of the Year (2002) award recipients. DPI members’ votes, at the annual conference in Palm Springs, determined the awards.

Kodak Professional’s (Rochester, NY) 5260 inkjet printer, a product of |2127| Inc. (San Diego), a recently acquired Kodak company, is a high-speed, wide-format inkjet printer that employs piezo print-head technology, six colors and, comes with a proprietary Dynamic Contone (read “continuous tone”) ink system. It delivers five distinct drop sizes over an extended range (8-67pl) on a pixel-by-pixel basis. DPI says the result is a unique combination of quality output at 300 dpi with an “apparent resolution three to four times higher.”Encad Inc.

The 5260 has 12 piezo printheads with 300 nozzles per head (I’ll have more on this in a minute). Also, it allows you to use either dye or pigmented inks in six colors: cyan, magenta, yellow, black, light cyan and light magenta. Its modular, 1-liter ink cartridges simplify ink loading, and its intermediate ink reservoirs allow on-the-fly cartridge replacement.

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Interestingly, the 5260 uses nanopigment technology that reportedly offers brighter, more fade-resistant images than you would normally expect from pigmented inks. Plus, it delivers drop sizes as small as 10 nanometers.

A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter. One meter — remember? — equals 39.37 standard inches.

Let’s study nanopigments and nanocolorants for a minute. You know that chemists add either dyes or pigments as colorants for inkjet inks. You also know that digital-printmakers favor high chroma (color brilliance) dye-based inks use pigment-based inks when they need lightfastness.

Eastman Kodak’s Inkjet Tech Lab manager, Douglas Bugner, in his paper on nanoparticulate inks, says one of the reasons that pigment-based inks have smaller color gamuts (as well as less hue and saturation) is because traditional pigments are milled in particle sizes that overlap the dimensions of the wavelength of visible light, that is, 400-700 nanometers.

When light strikes an opaque object, that object’s surface determines whether the light is fully reflected, fully diffused or both. Conversely, light that strikes a transparent object is partially transmitted and partially reflected, like sunshine on a car’s windshield. Because of the pigment’s miniature size, Kodak’s nanopigments give its inks translucent (good) characteristics. In other words, the larger (bad), non-nano pigments — like scattered leaves on a windshield — block incoming light, and this shadowing reduces (dulls) the reflectance and refractance of color, in wavelengths, back to the observer.

Kodak says it has commercialized a set of pigmented inks with pigment particle sizes in the 10-20 nanometer range, which improves the color gamut of its cyan, magenta and yellow.

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Other, non-Kodak studies also show that certain oxide-based nanopigments serve as photoprotective agents by either reflecting or scattering UV radiation. Thus, nanocolorants do offer higher color saturation and, if combined with light-dispersing nanopigments, improved UV fade resistance.

Internet scuttlebutt says Kodak spent a year of research and millions of dollars preparing the 5260. The early rumors said it was a Mimaki USA machine (Duluth, GA) with Epson (Portland, OR) piezo printheads. This was somewhat believable because Kodak’s large-format history includes agreements with other manufacturers. It has offered rebranded Encad large-format digital printers (the Encad ID plate was on the back) and has also worked with Mutoh America Inc. (Tempe, AZ). Mutoh, Mimaki

Mimaki Japanese plant probably manufactured components for the 5260, but the printheads, it appears, are manufactured by Brother Intl. Corp. (Bridgewater, NJ), not Epson. This is interesting because, until now, you’d find Brother printheads on fax machines and office printers, but not large-format inkjets. We add more complexity when we learn that Brother licenses printhead technology from Xaar Technology (Cambridge, U.K.), one of Xaar’s three business divisions.

A further thought is that, although Kodak remains heavily involved in photography, in the end, Kodak may best excel in selling digital media. If you think back, Kodak was, and is, the film and paper supplier for photographers. And although the company now sells digital cameras such as its DX3900, it’s still considered a manufacturer of photographic consumables.

Historic successes run deep in the veins of any corporation, so expect Kodak Professional (albeit a latecomer in large-format inkjet) to eventually strengthen itself in the media market because the money is in media once you’ve sold everyone a print machine, just as the money is in film once you’ve sold everyone a camera.

To wit, Kodak Professional recently honored the winners of its Second Annual Innovator Awards contest, in which the company recognized the most creative applications of wide-format, image-output technology.

Bonny Lhotka and Lhotka Studios (Boulder, CO) took the grand prize for best overall, wide-format, inkjet-imaging application. Bonny, a long time friend and well-known digital artist, received a free trip to the Seybold show in San Francisco, free accommodations and $1,500 worth of Kodak Professional inkjet media.

Way to go, Bonny.

In the final analysis, Kodak’s hybrid style of conducting business, as diverse as big-city populations, is a common and modern manufacturing trend. Even such staid firms as Harley-Davidson finally realized that some out-of-country manufacturers make better and cheaper parts than the bearded guys in Milwaukee. Harley even consulted with Porsche when designing its new V-Rod engine.

I’m saying that it’s not only common to mix components, but it’s an excellent idea. Boeing’s Airbus 320, for example, includes parts from more than 1,000 international manufacturers that are, for the most part, managed by the Internet-based Satair Integrated Purchasing System (Copenhagen).

Covisent (Southfield, MI), you may remember, is a worldwide, e-business exchange for the automotive industry. It links Daimler Chrysler, GM and Ford to their agents and suppliers worldwide, and, last year, it assisted the Big Three in handling $21 billion in materials. Better, it cut the average order cycle time (from call to delivery) by 30%, and its owners expect it to cut that figure by half again.

The future auto manufacturers’ plan is to establish Web-based auto sales systems where you select the vehicle of your choice and, then, select from a list of available modules to create your own “custom” car. They say it will put most dealers out of business.

Meanwhile, if you’ll excuse me for getting out of my box, perhaps it’s time someone invented component-based signage.

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