Photo Shop Prints POP Signs

Even though my speedometer was reading 80, a huge red and chrome Ford F250 pickup truck was inches off my back bumper. This truck was one of several dozen — the shift-change traffic from Ford s Dearborn plant — that were swarming I-75, south of Detroit. The red F250 flicked by me. A black F150 that, seconds later, veered onto the apron to pass a jade-green Camry, shadowed it. Driving the highway s posted speed limit — 55 mph — would get you killed here. Truth is, this Detroit-to-Toledo thoroughfare is famous for its outlaw crossings. As a Native American trail, Tecumseh traveled it in 1812, to help the British take Fort Detroit. In the 1920s, Detroit s infamous Purple Gang ran Canada-made bootleg liquor to Toledo (and then Chicago) along this road s predecessor, the Dixie Highway. In 1933, Pretty Boy Floyd and Adam Richetti traveled here after gunning down four lawmen in Kansas City. They were en route to Toledo to see their sweethearts, Juanita and Rose. The truck racers blitzkrieg, combined with my knowledge of this road s history, caused me to question if there wasn t something in the firmament here — an outlaw force perhaps? — that, like Matrix movies or Ceylonese incense, only affects certain people. I was on my way home from Royal Oak, a suburb of Detroit, where I d spent the day at Tri-Color Photographic, with its staff and EFI-VUTEk s (Meredith, NH) Marketing Communications and Public Relations Manager Jane Cedrone. They had invited me to the Royal Oak lab to see Vutek s eight-color, 72-in.-wide, PressVu 180 UV, digital-print machine that generates point-of-purchase (POP) signs. Interesting event, this, standing inside a white-walled, air-conditioned photo lab while watching a digital-print machine automatically feed and image ultraviolet (UV)-curable ink signs from a stack of 1/4-in. Sintra™ (Alcan Composites, St. Louis) expanded PVC board. Alcan Composites

Vutek, as you know, is a worldwide supplier of superwide-format, digital inkjet printers, and its products include the industrial-strength UltraVu™ and PressVu lines. Vutek s $559,000 PressVu 180 UV — the machine I viewed — is similar to the PressVu solvent machine, but this one prints with UV-curable inks (more on this in a minute) that, Vutek says, minimize any variation in output appearance from substrate to substrate. $image1

The machine directly prints onto both flexible and rigid substrates at (true) 360dpi and, to increase print speed, you can switch the eight-color inkset to (production format) double four. The setup and changeover between flexible and rigid substrates takes only a few minutes. Also, the PressVu has a fully enclosed air filtration system for environmental and operator safety.

Vutek s engineers designed the UV model to produce graphics for signs, POP, posters, exhibition graphics, displays (including backlit), fleet and vehicle graphics, bus shelters, bus wraps, murals and more. The automated feeder I saw at Tri-Color is an option you ll want to buy.

Jane tells me that Vutek also provides factory training, 24/7 tech support, applications assistance and marketing tools.

Cool.

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Upon entering Tri-Color s digital print room, I immediately noticed that no one was fussing over the Vutek machine or, other than stacking the finished images, the signs it was making. In fact, while the PressVu happily produced POP signs from its stack of Sintra, its operator was helping another employee correct a vacuum problem with a Zund cutting router.

Jane, I said, no one is paying attention to the printer.

She looked at the machine and back to me, puzzled.

That absence of attention, I explained, says a whole lot about the machine.

Generally, in working shops, I see one or more people fidgeting over digital-print machines. They re usually tweaking, adjusting or standing by to scrutinize the prints. This printer was working as efficiently as a Krispy Kreme donut maker. And, just like the donut guy routinely carries the donuts away to a shelf, so it was with this machine s operator and his prints.

No sprinkles, however.

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Let me add here, emphatically, that there are other digital-print devices — UV-based, resin-based thermal-transfer or solvent-inkjet printers that print excellent, long-life images — but I m focusing on Vutek s PressVu here because UV-based digital printers remain a curiosity (mystery?) to signmakers. Besides, I had a chance to see it firsthand, in-vivo.

I ve read that UV prints aren t acceptable for vehicle graphics or banners, because the polymer-based UV inks crack (fracture) when flexed or bent. I ve learned that this isn t exactly true, but, like the stubborn lid on a partially opened Alpo can, constant to-and-fro bending will cause UV ink to break. Constant is the key word, with pressure applied to the same point. Nonetheless, different UV inks are blended for different purposes, and some are more flexible than others.

Other UV-ink-based digital printers are built and marketed by Inca Digital Printers Ltd. (Cambridge, United Kindgom), Zünd (Racine, WI), Durst (Hillsboro, OR), 3M (St. Paul, MN) and L&P Digital Technologies (Jacksonville Beach, FL). Inca is a spin-off from Cambridge Consultants Limited, (Cambridge, MA); the 3M UV printer is a spin-off of L&P s technology.

I asked Corinne Bolton, Tri-Color Photographic s marketing director, for a sample of the PressVu s work. Back in Cincinnati, I added this sample to two other ultraviolet-ink print samples. Tri-Color s Vutek print was imaged on white Sintra; the second print, from Diversified Digital Screenprint (Conshohocken, PA), was printed on 1/4-in.-thick foam board with an Inca Eagle H UV-based digital printer. The third print, imaged on 1/4-in. plywood overlaid with maple veneer, was also printed by Diversified. $image2

The first two would pass anyone s criteria for acceptable signage of the type; the second lacks contrast because of its wood base, although this type of directly printing on wood would suffice for such specialized applications as full-color images on wood-based skate- or surfboards, historic-image signs or steakhouse menuboards.

Each of these three signs is tough, resilient and colorfast. My thumbnail scratch test says the foamboard base, due to the paper backing, is the weakest. The paper failed, not the ink. Not surprisingly, the Sintra-based sign is the toughest to brutalize, although it s a close match with the wood.

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In a Darwinian sense, UV printers had to scramble out of the mire after flatbed-digital printers emerged, because UV systems require a flat base for the printhead operation and following ultraviolet curing. UV-curable inks convert to a solid state through polymerization, a chemical process that begins when the machine exposes the ink to UV lamps. When exposed to this light, the ink s light-activated catalysts metamorphose and bind the ink s pigments. Thus transformed, the ink becomes a solid coating that bonds with the media.

UV inks and machines are pricier than the average, solvent-based inkjet or thermal-transfer printers, but I m sure the price difference will close somewhat as the manufacturers refine their processes. However, because the UV process requires an extensive lighting system, solvent-based inkjets — which produce comparable results in many instances — will always cost less.

The final analysis, again, is to buy the machine that best suits your market. For Tri-Color Photographic and its POP market, the Vutek PressVu UV serves quite well.