Canon imagePRESS C1 print samples?

Discussion in 'Canon imagePRESS Digital Presses' started by Jeff, Aug 4, 2006.

  1. Jeff

    Jeff Senior Member

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    Anyone get canon imagePRESS sample prints yet? Since finish quallity / gloss differential is the only aspect of print quality that is setting canon printed from press printed pieces apart from my customers' point of view (who don't look with a loupe, etc.) I'm really curious how the new V Toner and imagePRESS series that "apply gloss optimization" will look compared to current color imagerunner (too matte on gloss and some jitter issues) or clc (too gloss on matte and uneven gloss according to toner density in a given area) machines. Not that the existing machines aren't better than ever before, but if canon can make a major step forward on gloss uniformity I think it will be hard to beat.

    Also any rumors of a midrange model between the 14/60 ppm imagePRESS C1 and the impagePRESS C7000VP?
     
  2. Dannyc

    Dannyc New Member

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    I have just seen a sample of the Imagepress, and I must say I was extremely impressed. The detail was startling. It was a picture of a model and showed the finest details...I was hard pressed to tell the difference from work off my 4 colour press. At least the sample I saw seemed better by a substantial amount to the Xerox iGen3..though I would have preferred to see more samples..
     
  3. Jeff

    Jeff Senior Member

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    Thanks very much for the early impression Danny! Still have not seen a sample myself but look forward to seeing a variety and am really looking forward to see what the next generation can do. Was the sample you saw on matte color copy paper, or?
     
  4. Dannyc

    Dannyc New Member

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    Imagepress

    The sample I saw was on a Kromecote high gloss cover. The optimization feature matched the stock shine such that you could see no toner relief effect. Quite amazing if that image quality holds true. I visually saw some booklets as well that also were great, but who knows how much the file was tweaked. They are talking about pricing in the 50,000 dollar range for C1...the Imagepress 7000 in the 200,000 range. The speed factor on the C1 may be a problem.
     
  5. mcauley

    mcauley Member

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    If you guys want to send me a file. I can get it printed for you and mail it out to you. I have a C1 in my ikon showroom. mcauley@ikon.com
     
  6. Jeff

    Jeff Senior Member

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    Thank you! I'll take you up on that as I'm very curious to see with my own eyes the gloss quality the new generation can deliver! Will email a PDF on Monday. Thanks!
     
  7. Andy Lim

    Andy Lim Member

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    Hi ! I am doing very Customize photo album (Family album) for my customers. Currently, I came across digital press - Indigo & canon imagepress. I saw indigo printout - the A3 print quality is quite impressive but still sees a small defects - (Still acceptable). Hot Laminating on the image is not a issue. May want to switch from photolab to digital press printout - cheaper in cost.

    How is the print quality?
    How is the Handling/scratch resistant?
    How is Canon image press on Hot laminating?

    Regards
    Nissh
     
  8. Jeff

    Jeff Senior Member

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    Thanks to IKON I've been looking at my ImagePRESS C1 print samples for a while now.

    The print quality is definitely good.
    • To my eyes, the photographic images are more natural looking than from a CLC 5000, but also have better density (darker shadows, yet not losing shadow detail going to black to achieve it) than my color imagerunners. (as expected of course)
    • The colors are definitely deeper and richer than what we can achieve now on our imagerunners by a noticable amount. The blue sky and blue and green water, and red highlights are all 30% deeper and more saturated. The yellow grass of winter/spring has more detai in every blade. Of course most people going to an imagepress C1 will probably be coming from a CLC where there is likely less color difference.
    • The large solid black areas on my test print are 100% perfect.
      The light gray areas are 100% prefect. The large solid medium gray test area shows a bit of inconsistency which looks to my eyes like drum wear; it's 96% perfect on my subjective scale.
    • The gloss quality is good, as good as I've seen from any canon, hp, xerox, oki, etc. laser to date, but not perfect. It's good enough to pass for the offset work we used to get on gloss text but without an aqueous or uv coating like we are accustomed to now on press-printed work.
    • If you look at the gloss imagepress C1 output straight on, it looks very good. But if you look at it at a 15 to 30 degree angle you still get a bit of an outline / gloss differential effect if you have areas of white next to areas of black. (but I really became picky about this after going to digital laser prints and not wanting my prints to look "laser"... I recently looked at some of the press printed work I had done in the 90s that I didn't have any complaints about at the time and it too suffers from some gloss differential where the inks are glossier than the standard gloss text stock used back then, so maybe I'm being too critical now that all the postcards and trifolds we have press printed are uv coated.) The gloss quality is good, which is a nice step from previous laser output to date which I would say was only so-so in terms of gloss, but not perfect. (not you could design to fit this gloss; the sample I sent had a black and white boat and a couple people wearing white shirts and black coats, probably the very worst case in terms of trying to match toner and paper gloss levels.)
    • I'm not able to damage the prints, other than by physically denting the paper, by rubbing my fingernail over the print 50 times or by abrading with my hands or handing roughly. I can drag the toner by rubbing with a pen, but this seems to go beyond any reasonable expectation for abuse. I would consider these prints quite durable and would be confident that customers would not damage them by handling straight from the printer.
    The price seems a bit on the high side for the slow color speed; I suppose any new technolgy goes to those with the largest budgets first. This probably wouldn't quite be the "last printer I'll every buy" as I'd like just a little less gloss differential, but I'd be quite happy putting a million prints on one of these!
     
  9. Andy Lim

    Andy Lim Member

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    Hi !

    The richer color can be due to proper color management that canon imagepress is applying. Canon is very strong in color management. From your description on colour, it looks that it is has a high quality.

    How about grey tone page? Is it very uniform? Cos most of the digital offset have problems on this grey page.


    Do u know whether is there a problem running through hot OPP lamination?

    How much is 4 color A3 size print in the market?

    Regards
    Andy
     
  10. Pasos

    Pasos New Member

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    I am spanish so my english is not so good. I have an Imagepress C1 and I have a very big problem. When impose a file with the percentage of C 48%, M 46%, A 67%, K 18% or similar and you can try also C2, M3, Y31, B0 or similar or a photo or image in this range of mixed in any part, and print in SRA3 format you will see the diference of color in the same sheet. This is a very big problem when you print in impose mode for a designer or an exigent client.

    Tecnicians of Canon have been testing my machine for 100 hours and they did not ges a solution. Also I have a coleg with this machine and we make a proof and the same.



    I hope this information help you to know better about this machine.

    Regards
     
  11. Andy Lim

    Andy Lim Member

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    Hi ! Pasos,

    If I get you correctly, You mean that within a sheet, you will see different color in terms of L* A* B* Delta E* or OD ? How big is the different?

    Regards
     
  12. Jeff

    Jeff Senior Member

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    It might have to do with the RIP in some part, but it also has to do with the printable color gamut of the machine, density range, and simple resolution. It still doesn't have the range of shadow density of an 8- or 12- color inkjet for example, but the range of dark grays before they become black seems better than any laser I've seen to date. I was also impressed with the resolution - blades of winter/spring grass had a nice degree of individual sharpness and shadow detail without becoming either cartoonish (from the application of the black) or all blending together in one textured tan mass as other lasers tend to do.
    Acceptable, but not perfectly consistent. The 25% gray was very consistent, but the 50% gray showed some slight streaking - to my eye it appeared to be drum wear as the inconsistency was in the 18" direction not the 12" direction. How much would it cost to maintain the machine to a higher specification to not have this - I don't know. I don't think it would affect photographs at all though.
    What temperature does the hot lamination run at? Easiest might be to get a print sample and try it to see if any affect on the toner is detectable.

    May I ask what machine you are using to hot laminate? I was wondering if there was a machine that could load a stack of 1,000 to 1,500 prints, laminate, and cut them as a way to gloss over toner on uncoated paper. I have not seen such a machine to date.

    That's a good question too - I do not know how the price per print compares right now to what can be delivered on the previous generation CLC for example.
     
  13. Andy Lim

    Andy Lim Member

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    Any limitation on substrate? Gloss coated, Coated matte and Uncoated? Does the substrate needs to be approved in order to be used?

    Possible to send me some printout? Can I contact your profile directly?


    Regards
    Andy
     
  14. Jeff

    Jeff Senior Member

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  15. C_MYK_Run

    C_MYK_Run New Member

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    Print quality on the imagePRESS c1 is second to none, great for photobooks. It is scratch resistant, better than the iGen, HP indigo (worst for this), and it laminates, and can be UV coated perfectly!
     

  16. Mac

    Mac New Member

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    Canon imagepress quailty vs other digital presses

    Recently looked at three machines Canon C7000vp, xerox 5000, and
    Konica Minolta 6500. Their are many factors to get the color you are looking for mainly how the file was prepared and the rip that runs the machine. I took several of my files and made press quality pdf's converted all colors to cymk using swop coated2 profile. Now when they printed off my files from a fiery rip using canons profile I found the prints to be dark, they said because the machine has such a large color gamut, when you use say my swop profile the color gamut is smaller. I don't care what the gamut is I just want my files to look right. Now when I printed of the Konica Minolta they had trouble with one of my files with transparencies using a Creo rip. They switched to a Fiery and used my swop setting in the rip and bang looked very close to what I ran on press (very pleased) Xerox demo sorry to say did not go well tech didn't show up salesmen tried to do demo, had troubles with machine so I can not give a good evaluation. I'm sure if you set your files up and use the right settings such as the swop I used the Canon could have done very pleasing color. They did do prints of some of their files and they where very nice. They
    have just completed and Independent Technical Evaluation of several digital press vs a 40" Heidelberg and what I read out of GraphicArts magazine sounds like they faired very well. They have a report you can buy at www.ipa.org/digitalprint have not purchased it yet myself. One last thing I brought some of my stock to these demos. One was a Hammermill color copy cover it is a non-gloss sheet and the prints that came off the canon had a shiny look to it didn't like how that looked. Depends on what you want but the price difference between the Canon and the Konica Minolta machine is huge but from what I seen in the prints very little difference is it worth the money?
     
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