Prepress

HP Debuts Solutions to Accelerate the Growing Digital Photo and Publishing Marketplace

Thursday 25. September 2008 - HP today announced the newest additions to its digital photography portfolio, designed to empower customers to do more with their digital assets across the printing ecosystem at retail, online or at home. From consumers, hobbyists and professionals to retail and print service providers, these offerings provide new opportunities to publish customized creative content in innovative ways to delight customers while helping retail and service providers to successfully pursue new, profitable growth opportunities.

The technologies are being demonstrated in the HP booth in Hall 4.1 at Photokina 2008. Highlights include:

The HP Designjet Z3200 Photo Printer – a pro-photography solution that allows creative professionals and print service providers to produce gallery-quality black-and-white and color prints, photographs, art enlargements, digital designs and high-accuracy proofs with 12 HP Vivera pigment inks and a new HP 73 Chromatic Red.
European availability of recent additions to HP’s line of retail publishing solutions, designed to empower consumers with new tools to personalize their photos and publish customized, creative output while helping retailers increase revenue streams and maintain peak efficiency.
HP Photosmart B8550 Photo Printer – a complete home printing solution featuring a new, affordable five-ink printing system that is ideal for producing large-format prints while maintaining the versatility of an everyday home printer.
The HP Scanjet G3110 Photo Scanner – a scanning solution that makes it easy to preserve, share and archive photos, slides, negatives, documents and 3-D objects.
Additionally, HP also announced customer and partner agreements for its home and large format printing solutions. These include:

An exclusivity agreement with Blurb, a custom book publisher, to produce all of the company’s offerings using HP Indigo presses. Standardization on the HP Indigo platform assures Blurb customers that their books will always be fulfilled using the latest digital technology available.
A collaboration between HP and Nikon to enable a simplified workflow in fine art reproduction with the Nikon D3 camera and the new HP Designjet Z3200 Photo Printer, leveraging the HP Artist Software technology.
Beginning in 2009, HP will feature Microsoft’s Windows Live Photo Gallery and HP Creative Print Projects across its Photosmart and Deskjet consumer printing portfolio. This combined offering provides HP customers with the easy to use features in Windows Live Photo Gallery allowing them to print, share, organize and edit a wide array of HP creative print projects at home, such as photo albums, collages, cards, calendars, and more.
“The transition from analog to digital presents significant market opportunities for print service providers and creates opportunities for professional photographers and consumers to bring rich content to life,” said Michael Hoffmann, senior vice president, Graphics Solutions Business, HP. “Today’s announcements enhance HP’s portfolio of innovative digital photography solutions and services to enable this transformation of the photography industry and help customers create, access, manage and publish their content.”

Continuing the transformation for creative professionals

With its newest addition to the Z Series Photo Printer series, the HP Designjet Z3200 Photo Printer, HP continues to change the way professional photographers, digital fine artists, graphic designers and prepress professionals create large-format prints. The HP Designjet Z3200 Photo Printer enables gallery-quality black-and-white and color prints, photographs, art enlargements, large format designs and high-accuracy proofs that stand out and withstand the test of time.

Using a 12-ink HP Vivera pigment system – including a new HP 73 Chromatic Red Ink that enables up to 95 percent PANTONE coverage(1), an HP Quad-Black Ink set to produce smooth transitions and true neutral grays and an HP Gloss Enhancer – the HP Designjet Z3200 Photo Printer achieves a unique combination of consistently outstanding image quality and exceptional image permanence of more than 200 years(2). An enhanced HP Color Center Tool allows easy color calibration and profiling. Leveraging the embedded spectrophotometer(3) and HP DreamColor Technologies, users can easily generate custom ICC profiles in-house for preferred papers and specific environmental conditions to deliver print-to-print and printer-to-printer repeatability across a range of HP and compatible media. The HP Designjet Z3200 Photo Printer also enables productive operation, great ink efficiency and optical drop detection allowing users to optimize the printer’s performance with automatic servicing routines.

The Designjet Z3200 Photo Printer supports more than 50 Original HP large-format printing materials designed together with HP Vivera pigment inks, from photographic and digital fine art papers to coated and display-graphic materials including the new HP Baryte Satin Art Paper. This media offers the exceptional image quality demanded by top photography professionals. When used together, HP Baryte Satin Art Paper and HP Vivera pigment inks are ideal for printing images that have the traditional “look and feel” of classic argentic baryte papers.

HP customer quality assurance

Also announced today, HP is extending its successful HP RIP Certification Program to include the new HP Designjet Z3200 Photo Printer. The HP Designjet Z3200 Certification Program continues HP’s expansive process of aligning essential user performance expectations and the unique capabilities of the printer series for a wide range of large-format printing applications. In addition to compatibility assurance, customers have even more flexibility and choice in Raster Image Processor (RIP) and workflow solutions.

RIPs that have achieved certified status will carry the unique “Certified for HP Designjet Z3200” designation. Certification tests for the HP Designjet Z3200 include print quality, productivity, supported HP and custom media profiles, and other important characteristics including calibration and profiling. Only third-party companies who have demonstrated conformance with these criteria are awarded HP Designjet Z3200 certified status.

Nikon and HP collaborate on capture to print solution for fine art reproduction

HP and Nikon today announced a new collaboration to create additional opportunities for professional photographers that will empower their customers to increase productivity, extend creative opportunities and grow their business by optimizing the photography workflow from capture to print.

The HP and Nikon partnership will enable a simplified workflow in fine art reproduction with the Nikon D3 camera and the new HP Designjet Z3200 Photo Printer, leveraging the HP Artist Software technology. Through HP and Nikon technologies, customers can effortlessly achieve professional class digital fine art reproductions without requiring advanced color management and studio photography skills. The solution is delivered through a special edition of Ergosoft StudioPrint RIP software that will deliver an easy-to-use, optimized workflow from capture to print.

HP Artist Software enables a simple and quick workflow for reproducing fine art on the new HP Designjet Z3200 Photo Printer. The software uses select predefined camera and lighting configurations, automatically corrects the non-uniformities in lighting conditions and emulates colors optimized for printing on the HP Designjet Z3200 Photo Printer, reducing total production time from hours to minutes.

Driving growth, increasing productivity for photofinishers and PSPs

HP is also demonstrating HP Indigo presses, such as the HP Indigo press 5500, that enable photofinishers and PSPs to more easily enter into high-value photo specialty application areas. Photo specialty printing, which includes photobooks and similar digitally printed products, is the fastest-growing segment of the HP Indigo business. According to IDC, the photo merchandise market will grow 91 per cent from 2007-09, with worldwide revenues expected to reach $2.6 billion by 2009. (4)

Allowing for the efficient, high-quality in-house production of specialty items – including photo books, calendars and greeting cards – HP Indigo presses create new revenue opportunities for customers. Demonstrated at Photokina 2008, the HP Indigo press 5500, HP’s best-selling digital press, has been enhanced with options to facilitate greater productivity, including an additional feeder, an in-line connection to the HP Indigo UV Coater and a kit for enabling printing on thicker media.

The HP Indigo 7000 Digital Press prints 120 high-quality, four-color, A4-size pages per minute. It prints large numbers of static jobs with run lengths ranging from one copy into the thousands, as well as variable-data work requiring the “every page is different” capabilities of digital. HP has already seen great success with the HP Indigo 7000 Digital Press with more than 80 installations around the world. Nearly 60 percent of these customers will use the Press to create photo applications during the upcoming peak photo season.

The HP SmartStream Workflow Portfolio is designed to meet the needs of a broad range of market segments and applications and to provide workflow management from job creation to fulfillment. Portfolio components include the HP SmartStream Photo Enhancement Server version 2.0 that intelligently enhances consumer images while avoiding over-enhancement, the HP SmartStream Director, a complete workflow solution powered by Press-sense and HP SmartStream Designer personalization software.

Inspiring new retail publishing opportunities for consumers, fueling growth for retailers

In the retail environment, HP Retail Publishing Solutions help transform traditional photo labs into publishing centers, which, in addition to prints, can produce rich digital media, including creative photo products and new forms of output. These solutions allow customers to mix personal content with third-party professional or licensed content for a customized and on-demand retail publishing experience. New forms of output include personalized merchandise such customized travel guides, marketing collateral for small businesses, signage, and more.

In July, HP announced a partnership with department store Real, owned by METRO AG-one of Germany’s largest retailers-to provide self-service photo solutions in 300 of its stores across the country. Using the instant photo service, Real customers will be able to print high quality 4 x 6-inch (10 x 15 cm) photos within seconds or burn them onto a CD.

Additionally, Swains International Plc, Europe’s leading photo and telecoms distributor, recently launched a new company – Retail Photo Solutions Ltd. – which will sell HP’s digital, dry retail publishing solutions to the UK market.

Real and other retailers who implement HP’s innovative retail publishing solutions have the opportunity to tap into the vast publishing marketplace, which in the retail segment, is expected to grow by more than $36 billion in the next five years.(5) HP solutions enable retailers with the unique ability to merchandise relevant, customized materials-from posters to marketing collateral to event signage-to a variety of customers ranging from families to small businesses. By creating these new occasions for publishing, retailers can realize new market opportunities and generate increased revenue streams.

HP is showcasing several recent additions to its portfolio of retail publishing solutions, now available in Europe, at Photokina 2008:

The next generation HP Photo Center PS3500

This versatile, scalable and space-efficient digital print solution is designed to both work alongside a retailer’s existing lab infrastructure as well as completely replace traditional silver halide (Agx) chemistry based printing systems with new dry printing technology from HP.

The Photo Center solution can scale to incorporate the HP Photosmart ML1000 Minilab printer, which prints 1,500 4 x 6-inch (10 x 15 cm) prints per hour and is designed to be the fastest and most versatile dry inkjet retail photo printing system on the market today.(6) It produces up to 16 different print sizes with a space-efficient footprint, and features a redundant 12-ink cartridge system for uninterrupted printing.
The Photo Center can also include the easy-to-use, new HP Photosmart PM2000e Microlab printer with optional secure vending capabilities that let customers retrieve their photos in front of the counter, without employee assistance, for increased service efficiency. The compact design also allows for easy access behind the counter for a traditional full service environment.
The HP Photosmart CL2000 Creative printer allows retailers to expand their business beyond lab-quality photos to produce high-margin, high-value photo creations such as photo books, calendars, greeting cards and more, all within a one-hour service model.
For convenient self-service operation, the HP Photosmart Express station is the industry’s most advanced standalone kiosk dedicated to producing 4 x 6-inch prints quickly – in as fast as five seconds. Fast print speeds are enabled by HP’s scalable printing technology.
The HP Photo Center comes with an innovative suite of new software designed to help retailers with back office services, such as device configuration, billing and reporting. The system offers order management functionality to help with job fulfillment and an online Retail Management System (RMS) that ensures systems are consistently available for customer use.
HP Dry Printing Solutions and the Environment

HP’s dry printing solutions offer several environmental benefits for retailers, in that they consume three times less energy than comparable traditional silver halide (AgX) products, reduce the chemical and water waste associated with traditional photo processing, and use supplies that can be easily recycled after use through the HP Planet Partners return and recycling program.

Because the solutions don’t use traditional photographic chemicals, there is no specialized environmental training required to operate or maintain HP’s dry-lab systems. There is no mess, no unpleasant odor, no light-sensitive media to expose, and no complex startup or daily calibrations for store associates to perform. There is also never a need to dispose of or re-mix chemicals. The systems are designed for simplicity of operation so that the store teams can invest resources in customer service and sales to drive higher customer satisfaction and lab profits.

Creative Publishing Solutions

HP is expanding its portfolio of unique creative products, which can be created and ordered in-store or at home through Snapfish by HP, for retail pickup. This includes new themes for photo books, photo book covers, greeting cards, posters, calendars and canvas prints that leverage the latest worldwide style trends.

Fueling creativity with new ideas from Snapfish, HP’s leading online photo solution

At Photokina 2008, HP is showcasing the latest additions to the Snapfish photo collage collection which turn treasured memories into the perfect gift for family and friends. Recently introduced in the U.S. and Europe, these new collage products include posters, prints, mugs and mouse pads. Users can add up to 30 photos and choose from 14 brilliant background colors to customize the collage. Also is the option to customize a personal message to include for a gift.
Storing, sharing and ordering photos and photo creations from the comfort of home has never been more convenient, because with Snapfish, consumers can order prints and photo gifts online for delivery at home or pick-up at retail.

Empowering home printing customers with personal publishing solutions

In addition to its large-format printer line, HP has expanded its photo printer portfolio for advanced amateur photographers with the introduction of the HP Photosmart B8550 Photo Printer. This easy-to-use printer produces everything from snapshot-size photos and enlargements to everyday text and graphic documents. Users can print in a wide range of media sizes from 4 x 6-inches (10 x 15 cm) to 13 x 19-inches (32 x 48 cm) directly from digital cameras, memory cards and a PC or Mac. Priced at $299, the HP Photosmart B8550 Photo Printer is currently available for purchase.

Featuring HP’s new five-ink printing technology, the HP Photosmart B8550 gives customers more control over their ink cartridge costs. The five-ink system includes four HP 564 dye-ink cartridges in cyan, magenta, yellow and photo black for vivid color and black-and-white lab quality photos. The fifth cartridge contains black pigment ink for laser-quality black text on plain paper and enhanced document quality when printing on papers with ColorLok technology.

Additionally, the five-ink system also features a long-lasting, dual-drop-volume printhead that uses 55 percent recycled polyethylene terephthalate (RPET) plastic, which is derived from Original HP ink cartridges collected from customers through the HP Planet Partners return and recycling program and other sources, such as water bottles.

Also announced, the HP Scanjet G3110 Photo Scanner features a quick-and-easy, task-based interface with one-touch buttons that is ideal for sharing and archiving precious photos (prints, negatives and slides) and important documents. The scanner boasts 4800 x 9600 dots per inch (dpi) and 48-bit color resolution scanning for optimum image quality. HP’s scanning technology allows users to enhance images by restoring faded colors, correcting flaws caused by dust particles and scratches, and removing red-eye from scanned images. Priced at $99, the HP Scanjet G3110 Photo Scanner is currently available for purchase.

More information regarding HP’s announcements at Photokina 2008 is available in the online press kit at www.hp.com/go/GSBfall08.

1) 95% coverage of PANTONE MATCHING SYSTEM and PANTONE GOE systems, based on HP internal testing (PANTONE approval pending). Please visit www.hp.com/go/Z3200/PANTONE for final results.
(2) Image permanence estimates by HP Image Permanence Lab based on testing on a range of HP photo, fine art, and specialty papers: confirmation tests in progress at Wilhelm Imaging Research, Inc. For details, see www.hp.com/go/supplies/printpermanence.
(3) Embedded in this HP Designjet Photo Printer is an I1 spectrophotometer from Xrite. Close collaboration between HP and Xrite ensures a reliable solution that’s been thoroughly tested to meet customer demands for ease, quality, and dependability.
(4) IDC Market Analysis, Worldwide Online Custom Photo Merchandise 2008-2012 Forecast: The Photo Merchandise Bible, February 2008.
(5) Based on HP Analysis.
(6) Based upon manufacturers’ dry retail lab printer published specifications as of August 2008.
(7) Compared with HP 564 Black/Color Ink Cartridges. High-capacity cartridges not included; please purchase separately.