Epson America

It's not often an industry gets a close look at an $18 billion market worldwide that fits perfectly into its capabilities and skills, but is slipping by, largely uncultivated. This fall's Graph Expo & Converting Expo will give the printing, publishing and converting business just such an opportunity—a comprehensive overview of the untapped large-format digital ink-jet printing market. The show takes place October 6-9 at McCormick Place South in Chicago. It's the foremost U.S. exhibition in 2002, with an expected attendance of more than 40,000 buyers and about 500 exhibitors slated to occupy nearly 365,000 net square feet of booth space. Large-format ink-jet

Four MAN Presses Star at Newspaper INDIANAPOLIS—The Indianapolis Star has begun putting its new $72 million production facility to work, producing advertising sections on the first of four MAN Roland Geoman presses that are scheduled to print both daily and Sunday editions of the paper by mid-July. The new press hall encompasses more than 30,672 square feet on two levels. It is at the heart of a 260,000-square-foot complex, called the Pulliam Production Center (PPC) after the publishing family who led the Star over the past five decades. Stitcher Added to Handle Sales Boom QUINCY, IL—JK Creative Printers has purchased an Osako saddlestitcher from

CALIFORNIA GARDENA—L.A. Press is up-and-running with a new six-color, 40˝ Mitsubishi Model 3F-13 sheetfed press. IRVINE—Orange County Printing has installed a six-color, 40˝ Komori Lithrone press outfitted with a Tri-Service ColorCommand temperature control/cooling system. VAN NUYS—The installation of the Sentinel ink management system from Accel Graphic Systems is complete at Great Western Litho. The ink management system is now equipped on a Komori Lithrone 640 press purchased at PRINT 01. CONNECTICUT MERIDEN—Three former shareholders of Vision Graphics have joined commercial printer Miller-Johnson Inc. They are Tom Mitchell, Andrew Mitchell and Erik Mitchell. The transaction was initiated on Miller-Johnson's behalf by Rampart Associates LLC.

BY ERIK CAGLE Shingo Ohkado has an appreciation for baseball, and is an admirer of transplanted Japanese superstar Ichiro Suzuki, the 2001 Most Valuable Player and right fielder for the Seattle Mariners. Ohkado—president and CEO for Toppan Printing America of Somerset, NJ, a branch of the Tokyo-based worldwide printing king—sees an analogy between the sport and doing business in an economy that has seen better days in both America and his Japanese homeland. Revenues, like a player's batting average, are impacted by a number of variables. While Ichiro hit .350 to lead all of baseball, he was still prone to periodic slumps. Good

SANTA ANA, CA/HANOVER PARK, IL—Markzware's MarkzNet online preflight application will be integrated into myfujifilm.com under an agreement signed by the two companies. MarkzNet reportedly was selected for its ability to check native application files and instantly communicate any problems to the user. Developed by Fuji Photo Film, myfujifilm.com provides online solutions to help printers, trade shops, ad agencies, publishers and designers manage and enhance their production workflows. (www.myfujifilm.com/www.markzware.com) ROCHESTER, NY—Canon Inc. and NexPress Solutions have announced a commitment to work together to promote open standards that enable the seamless exchange of digital color printing jobs between the office and commercial printing markets.

INDIANASYRACUSE, IN—The Image Group recently achieved its 100 millionth impression on one of its six-color Akiyama offset presses. The sheetfed press, shown here with Bob McKee (left) of Akiyama and James Plummer Sr., president and CEO of The Image Group, was installed in 1986. NEW YORKHENRIETTA, NY—Tucker Printers has installed a new Heidelberg Speedmaster CD-102-6+LX at its facility here. With the press are (from the left) Dan Tucker, president of Tucker Printers, and Whitey Link, sales representative for Heidelberg USA. ARKANSASSPRINGDALE—The Morning News has purchased a TECSA 2470 copydot scanner from Graphic Enterprises Inc. (GEI). CALIFORNIASAN Diego—Dam Bindery has installed a Minuteman saddle

BY MOLLY JOSS In a little more than five years, computer-to-plate (CTP) technology has moved past the early experimenter phase and has moved into the later stages of the early adopter stage. Some might even argue it's moved into the early stages of the mainstream phase. However you measure it, it's difficult to argue that CTP is a flash-in-the-pan technology. Still, it hasn't yet found its way into every print shop in the nation and around the world. Widespread acceptance to that degree is yet to come. Wanting to get an inside look at how CTP is coming along, Printing Impressions recently spoke

I had to laugh when one seminar attendee said I was a windbag so full of hot air that he felt he was going into a melt down, because my wife has said the same thing to me before. But, so far, she hasn't gone into a melt down, at least not from the drone of my chatter. However, many were enthusiastic and said I gave them much to think about. It was amazing just how diverse the comments on my talk at the Seybold Conference in San Francisco were. My impact appeared to range from "wow" to "get lost." But, I think

Digital Color Graphics does not want to be a six-color operation—just yet. For today, owner John Rosenthal is content aspiring to rule the short-run printing market. BY CAROLINE MILLER It's good to be the king, and that's exactly what John Rosenthal, owner of Digital Color Graphics, wants to be. "I want to become the king of—and the benchmark for—all small printing companies in the country," he states. Still, rising to the top can be a challenge, especially in the crowded and competitive commercial printing market. However, for the past two and a half years, Digital Color Graphics, located in Southampton, PA, a Philadelphia suburb,

In a world of ever-tightening deadlines and faster production cycles, color proofing is a major stumbling block. Time is required to make the proof, especially in an analog workflow, and delivery and review add to that time. And while nothing can be done about either the creation or review stages of proofing, the delivery of the proof is an area that would seem ripe for compacting. Or at least that's what we've been hearing for some time now. Yet remote proofing is used for just a small fraction of all print materials produced. Why? If service is one of the primary differentiators between companies—a debatable