Business News
HP Demonstrates Continued Innovation and Leadership in Photographic Markets at Photokina 2010
Tuesday 21. September 2010 - New solutions, applications and services provide growth opportunities for the professional, retail and consumer markets with increased choices for customers
HP today announced its latest innovations providing new ways for all types of photographers to express their creativity and to share their memories. New, profitable solutions further expand HP’s extensive retail publishing portfolio enabling retailers to grow their in-store photo offerings, add new revenue streams and increase profitability.
HP is driving the acceleration of the analogue to digital transformation with products, solutions and partnerships addressing all levels of the photographic market. On the HP Photokina 2010 stand (Hall 4.1, stand I-050), visitors can see these latest integrated technologies that enable professional photographers, retailers, photo labs, print service providers and consumers to maximise the potential of digital photography.
New products and solutions shown for the first time at Photokina include:
The HP Photosmart ML 2000D – the fastest dry minilab on the market(2)- is capable of borderless single-sided and double-sided photo prints allowing retailers to offer a wide variety of premium quality creative photo products including photobooks and greeting cards.
The HP Photo Center Compact Instant Print Solution is ideal for retailers with limited floor space – a small, scalable, unattended self-service front-of-counter system that enables consumers to place orders for instant pickup of photos, enlargements, calendars, single-sided photobooks and photo CD’s.
HP Photo Creations – a fully customisable software solution enabling customers to easily transform photos into professional-quality photo creations at home and arrange for in-store pickup or to print them directly at home.
HP Designjet Z6200 Photo Printer series with HP Vivid Photo Inks, delivering high-quality output and the highest speeds of large format printers in its price class(1)
Snapfish Publisher by HP is an exciting on-line initiative for companies and individuals to market and sell their designs, merchandise and services
Recently launched HP graphic arts products for photo-printing applications on the HP stand include:
HP Indigo 7500 Digital Press for versatile photo-specialty production prints using HP Indigo Light Cyan and Light Magenta inks to produce images of professional photographic quality
HP Large Format Photo Negative application for use with the HP Designjet Z3200 Photo Printer uses digital captures or files to produce photo negatives for use as masters to produce high-quality fine art prints
HP is participating in the Creative Alliance Theatre, next to the HP stand, with daily presentations and supporting the Hasselblad Masters Book Launch with graphics printed on the new HP Designjet Z6200 Photo Printer and HP Scitex XP5100 Printer.
HP Retail Publishing Solutions
HP is leading the way into the multi-billion dollar retail publishing market with the most versatile, scalable and flexible photofinishing solutions. With the widest array of photo products and licensed content and an award-winning interface consumers love to use, HP drives growth by moving beyond simple prints into the profitable market of personalised creative merchandising.
The retail publishing market – estimated to be worth 56 billion(7) worldwide by 2013 will benefit from another innovative product with the launch of the HP Photosmart ML2000D.
The HP Photosmart ML2000D delivers a wide range of borderless single and double-sided photobooks and calendars. It can print photos in 20 sizes with glossy and matt finishes, produce up to 55 photobooks (335 duplex sheets) automatically per hour and prints at a rate of 1500 prints per hour(8). High capacity and best workflow capabilities are freeing up labour so store associates can focus on sales and customer service. Retailers can also increase customer loyalty as they offer a service where consumers can create a wide range of exceptional quality photo merchandise in minutes, while they shop.
The choice for an HP Photosmart ML2000D is environmentally responsible as it operates with an up to 33 percent smaller carbon footprint and it consumes up to 26 percent less total energy over a typical operating period(9). And because RPS’s digital photo technology is a closed system, there’s no need for operators to handle potentially hazardous chemicals, as with traditional silver halide systems.
Also on show is the HP Photo Center 5 software. Incorporating advancements developed by HP Labs, the HP Photo Center offers more than 165 creative products in 30 product categories such as photobooks, flip books, posters, canvas prints, DVD slideshows, calendars, banners, photo cards, folded greeting cards and more in addition to vibrant, lab-quality photos within a one-hour service environment. The versatile and scalable HP Photo Center 5 Premier can be plugged into a retailer’s existing lab infrastructure or serve as a complete solution.
The HP Photo Center Compact Instant Print Solution is a new hardware targeted at retailers with limited space and low print volume needs. The small, unattended self-service system that can host an additional enlargement printer enables consumers to instantly print an impressive range of photo merchandise beyond photos such as enlargements, cards, calendars, single-sided photobooks and photo CD’s.
In a Hub and Spoke setup the Compact Instant Print Solution serves as a Spoke from which consumers can send orders to the central high volume Hub store. It allows retailers to increase photo centre traffic and revenue from high-margin products offering consumers an expanded range of products such as posters, banners, greeting cards, double-sided photobooks, canvases and bound calendars in all of their stores.
HP Photo Creations is a complete home-to-retail software package that allows retailers to extend their photo product offerings. With this software customers can quickly and easily transform their photos into professional-quality photo creations including photobooks, posters, cards and calendars-without ever leaving the home. Customers prepare their photo creations at home, send the order electronically to a local store for printing and pickup or print them directly at home.
For more information please visit our website: www.hp.com/go/rps/emea.
HP introduces new speed and print quality market standards for graphic arts photo printing
Photokina sees the launch of the industry’s fastest production photo printer(1), the HP Designjet Z6200 Photo Printer series. Designed for photo labs, digital print shops, advertising agencies, design firms and commercial printers, the HP Designjet Z6200 Photo Printer series is suitable for applications ranging from line drawings to photo-quality prints. With speeds up to 140m2/hr (1500ft2/hr) and resolutions up to 2400dpi, the printer (available in 1.067m (42in) and 1.524m (60in) models) offers affordability, versatility and performance as well as the ability to meet short deadlines with high quality prints.
The HP Designjet Z6200 Photo Printer uses new HP Vivid Photo Inks that deliver improved scratch resistance, gloss levels and gloss uniformity, with a wider colour gamut featuring deeper blacks. The printer’s 8-colour system utilises HP Chromatic Red Ink that enables up to 88 percent PANTONE coverage(3) while using up to 44 percent less ink than preceding HP technologies.
At Photokina, HP is exhibiting its recently announced HP Large Format Photo Negative application that allows professional photographers using the HP Designjet Z3200 Photo Printer to produce fine-art quality prints or hardcopy image archives. While writing on film from digital data is not new, the Large Format Negative application is one of the simplest, least expensive and highest quality options available. Any professional photographer with an HP Designjet Z3200 Photo Printer, the correct substrate, and the free software package from HP can produce these photo negatives.
Digital files from film scans or digital captures can be used to produce photo negatives on a transparent substrate that can be used as masters to produce high-quality fine art prints in a wide range of classic, alternative monochrome or colour photographic processes including cyanotype, photogravure, platinotypes, dye-transfer, gum bichromate and carbro. Black and white or colour prints with a bigger tonal range and colour gamut than any digital process can be produced with this application.
HP Large Format Photo Negative prints shown on the stand will be tagged with ARTtrust, a simple, self-certification system that allows photographers and artists to provide individual identity to any Digital Fine Art Collection Pigment Print (Pigment Print), produced on HP Designjet Z series printers using HP Vivera pigment inks with any compatible media.
A joint development between HP and Prooftag, and endorsed by Wilhelm Imaging Research, ARTtrust is specifically designed to meet the need for artwork traceability and authenticity.
HP Designjet printers on show include the HP Designjet Z3200 Photo Printer which is ideal for photo labs, professional photographers, digital fine artists and print service providers who want to create gallery-quality prints, limited editions and fine art reproductions. Also shown is the HP Designjet Z2100 Photo Printer, and the HP Designjet Z5200 Printer, a simple and productive entry-level large format system that offers easy, affordable and high-quality printing in-house.
An HP Designjet L25500 Printer (available in 1.067m (42in) and 1.524m (60in) models) is on the stand demonstrating image quality, versatility and the creative opportunities enabled by HP Latex Inks technology. New applications for photographs – including custom-printed wall coverings and wallpapers – offer creatives, enterprises and consumers easy and affordable new options for interior design. Suitable for outdoor and indoor use – even in environments like supermarkets, restaurants, hotels and hospitals – prints are odourless,(4) and can be used as soon as they come off the printer.
HP Indigo presses drive double-digit growth in the photo-specialty market
The new HP Indigo 7500 Digital Press delivers high-quality digital print that can meet the demands of the photo-specialty market for photo merchandise from greetings cards to calendars and photobooks. Unique to the HP Indigo 7500 Digital Press are the Intelligent Automation feature that increases press productivity by 10 percent, and a new Vision System entirely automates manual calibrations and dependency on operator skill.
With the ability to print on a wide range of gloss and matt substrates, the HP Indigo 7500 Digital Press can use a six-colour process using HP Indigo Light Cyan and Light Magenta inks to produce images of professional photographic quality indistinguishable from silver halide. Output from HP Indigo presses has received a Wilhelm Imaging Research (WIR) rating of approximately 45 years, the first rating of its kind for a digital press.(5)
With the worldwide photo merchandise market doubling from 2009 – 2010(6) and the 2009 peak season of photo specialty printing showing a 47 percent increase in the number of pages printed, efficient production throughput is of special concern to photo speciality printers. To address this need the new PageReady fully automatic cutter/slitter/merger/stacker is a JDF-enabled finishing solution developed with Lasermax Roll Systems for inline or near-line use and can be run virtually unattended with no intervention required between jobs.
Customers like ORWO Net GmbH, of Bitterfeld-Wolfen, a major photo lab that installed the first HP Indigo 7500 Digital Press in Germany, are benefitting from production enhancements. “We like the additional colour and quality control; the six colour option and the possibility of using white ink, and the way it integrates into the configuration of our other two HP Indigo presses,” said Peter Ulbricht, managing director, ORWO Net.
HP SmartStream Photo Enhancement Severs sharpen, smooth, enhance contrast and reduce JPEG artefacts on the fly delivering brighter colours, more shadow detail and crisper images and ensuring high print quality.
Special areas on the HP stand displaying how digital printing can be leveraged for professional photographers , photo labs and photo-printers include:
Samples, for photographers to stimulate ideas for various markets (wedding, school, trade marking and self-publishing
Media, demonstrating how the right choice of materials can add value to photo-products
Finishing samples, illustrating the quality and variety of photo products possible with HP Indigo technologies
HP finishing partners also have a presence in the HP Indigo area and will be demonstrating production scenarios using different forms of finishing including trimming, laminating, coating and hard cover binding.
HP partners at Photokina include GMP (UV coating and laminating), Krug & Priester (guillotines), PhotoBook Technology (lay-flat books), Renz (punches and wire binding), and Schmedt (hard cover book finishing and PUR (polyurethane reactive glue) binding).
Snapfish for B2B and consumers
Snapfish by HP is the leading global end-to-end online photo solution offering B2B customers and consumers interactive photo printing services with customer-choice options for pick-up in-store, print in-store, home delivery or access online and print at home. Using the web for ordering professionally-developed digital camera prints, sharing pictures with friends, and creating a wide variety of personalised photo products, Snapfish’s worldwide presence enables millions of people to order, print and store billions of pictures in seamless operations.
Announced at Photokina for roll-out in EMEA in 2011 is the open platform Snapfish Publisher that enables designers, developers and printing partners to reach more than 90 million registered Snapfish users worldwide. Via the Snapfish network end-customers can access a specialised portfolio of customisable options that meet myriad creative needs and personal preferences. Snapfish Publisher is a platform for individuals and companies to market and sell their creative designs, merchandise and services, enabling them to capture a greater share of the market for online photo ordering.
Participating with industry leaders
The Creative Alliance comprises six high-profile companies, including HP, focused on the professional photography market. It is partnering with Photokina and the Koln Messe to present daily educational sessions during the show in the Creative Alliance Theatre (I-010), next to the HP stand.
Daily presentations will be given by HP Personal Services Group (PSG) personnel and Magnum photographer Thomas Hoepker.
High-quality professional photographs printed with the new HP Designjet Z6200 Photo Printer and an HP Scitex XP5100 Printer, are on display to support the Hasselblad Masters Book Launch on the Hasselblad stand, Hall 2.1, A-021.
(1) Based on published manufacturer specifications as of June 2010.
(2) Based upon manufacturers’ dry retail lab printer published specifications as of July 2010.
(3) Eighty-eight percent coverage of PANTONE MATCHING SYSTEM and PANTONE GOE systems, based on HP internal testing (PANTONE certification of HP results pending).
(4) Printers using HP Latex Inks use internal heaters to dry and cure the latex polymer film. Some substrates may have inherent odour.
(5) Wilhelm Imaging Research, February 2010
(6) HP internal sources.
(7) Source: Retail Publishing Solutions; HP analysis.
(8) Print speeds are estimates and are up to the designated levels stated
(9) Based on a 2010 life cycle assessment performed by Four Elements Consulting and commissioned by HP. The study compared the impact of using HP ML1000D, HP ML2000D and HP Microlab pm2000e printers with the impact of using Fuji Frontier 370 and Noritsu QSS-3502 printers to produce 450,000 4×6-inch photos a year in North America.