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While many factors affect the performance of a digital press, a huge part of the look of the output is based on paper choice. To achieve high-quality vibrant colors, the right paper or substrate is as necessary to the final product as the text and images being presented to your client. A variety of paper lines are certified for digital presses so commercial printers get optimal performance from their machines. Following is a sampling of those lines.
Domtar
(www.domtar.com)
The new Domtar Luna Digital is designed to meet the exacting needs of most digital press platforms. It has been certified for optimal performance on HP Indigo and Kodak NexPress, and recommended for Xerox iGen3 by the Rochester Institute of Technology. With a GE brightness of 90 and outstanding gloss, it is designed to deliver vibrant color and high quality that digital printing makes possible with exceptional toner adhesion.
Domtar Luna Digital is acid free, elemental chlorine free, and available in a gloss finish only. All Domtar Luna Digital items are fully FSC-certified, and are guaranteed to contain a minimum of 20-percent post-consumer waste.
Finch Paper
(www.finchpaper.com)
Finch Fine Digital products are highly refined, archival premium papers designed for cross-platform performance on all digital and offset equipment, including copiers, printers and digital presses, such as iGen3, NexPress, Xeikon, DocuColor and DI. Finch Fine Digital offers an ultra smooth surface and 98 brightness.
With 96 brightness, a very smooth surface, and outstanding formation, Finch Opaque Digital offers an economical option for digital printing, without sacrificing quality. Opaque Digital products are designed for cross-platform performance on all digital and offset equipment, including copiers, printers and digital presses, such as iGen3, NexPress, Xeikon, DocuColor and DI.
Finch Fine iD—specially designed and fully approved for the HP line of sheet- and web-fed Indigo presses—is now available in more shades and basis weights.
In addition, the line offers the company's proprietary (non-Sapphire) surface treatment that provides immediate, superior adhesion of HP Indigo ink systems.
Georgia-Pacific
(www.gp.com)
Spectrum Color Laser has a crisp, smooth surface designed for premium quality results in digital color printers. Its true blue-white shade provides for a high level of contrast, making images brilliant. According to GP, Spectrum Color Laser is suitable for marketing materials and top-level printed pieces that need to stand out and get noticed.
Glatfelter
(www.glatfelter.com)
Designed for both wide-format and desktop printing, Glatfelter's Pixelle line of papers is available in several finishes and performance levels to satisfy a broad range of end-use applications. From business graphics to labeling, Pixelle papers provide customers with the ability to produce high-quality digital images with "exceptional" fidelity and vivid color.
Glatfelter offers other digitally printable substrates as well. The company has developed several heavyweight tag grades for thermal transfer and direct thermal printing applications. The ready-to-print thermal transfer grades provide "outstanding" anchorage and sharp bar code images. The direct thermal base papers offer "exceptional" surfaces for heat-sensitive coatings.
Glatfelter papers are suitable for point-of-sale posters, venue tickets, boarding passes, apparel tags, and other applications.
Hewlett-Packard
(www.hp.com)
Promising sheet-to-sheet integrity and superior color reproduction, HP Indigo Printing Paper establishes and achieves high standards for image quality.
With superior whiteness and smoothness, HP Indigo Printing Paper is engineered to provide optimum performance on HP Indigo commercial presses. Competitively priced and reliable, these sheets provide superior ink adhesion and archival integrity.
Mohawk Fine Papers
(www.mohawkpaper.com)
Mohawk's digital papers are engineered to perform equally well on HP Indigo, Xerox iGen3, and Kodak NexPress presses. Mohawk Color Copy papers has been expanded to include: 110-lb. cover in Mohawk Color Copy 98, added weights in Mohawk Color Copy Gloss, higher 92-brightness in Mohawk Color Copy Ultra Gloss, and new sheet sizes for iGen3.
New Mohawk Via Digital papers provide a high-quality, value-based solution for digital color printing in three finishes—satin, felt, and linen. Manufactured with wind-generated electricity, and made with Mohawk's exclusive i-Tone surface treatment, these papers are optimized for superior performance on iGen3, Nexpress 2100 Plus, and HP Indigo.
Available in 30-percent post-consumer waste and a wide range of basis weights—from 24-lb. writing to 100-lb. cover—Mohawk Via Digital is suitable for short runs and full variable-data printing.
Mohawk has included new digital items with i-Tone in the just-relaunched carbon-neutral Beckett Expression. The revamped product line offers basis weights from 80-lb. text to 100-lb. cover, with an "outstanding" printing surface designed for high-performance on any printing platform from traditional offset, heatset web, waterless, Xerox iGen3, Kodak NexPress, and HP Indigo, to office printers and copiers.
Mohawk 50/10 coated, in both matte and gloss finishes, is stocked for all digital printer lines. It is manufactured with i-Tone, offers "outstanding" liquid and dry toner adhesion, and is suitable for digital color production presses. It is available in basis weights from 80-lb. text to 100-lb. cover.
Neenah Paper
(www.neenahpaper.com)
Classic Crest writing, text, and cover papers are continually specified for identity projects because of their smooth communicating style, coordinating weights, and matching envelopes. This brand is available in digital sizes, and Neenah has obtained written verification via third party that it offers superior print performance on the Nexpress, Indigo, and iGen3 presses.
If you design an identity system and, years later, need additional envelopes, the colors in Classic Crest will be available and match up, according to the company.
Smart Papers
(www.smartpapers.com)
Digital papers are under the company's core brands, including Kromekote, Knightkote Matte, Carnival, Pegasus, Synergy, Genesis, and other text and cover grades.
Smart Papers has expanded its offering of printing papers engineered specifically for digital presses and production-rated color copiers, including expansions of its flagship glossy Kromekote and premium uncoated Pegasus lines.
The company's Smart Digital line now includes Kromekote papers with a wider range of basis weights, including a new 14-pt. laser sheet, a new Pegasus double-thick cover, and new Kromekote roll products for Indigo presses.
The Pegasus Digital Color Copy line has also been expanded to include new high-brightness, and a super-smooth finish for premium digital color printing. It is offered in a wide range of weights and sizes, and is guaranteed for digital presses and color copiers.
Its cast-coated Kromekote and matte-coated Knightkote sheets are made to run on commercial digital presses, as well as color laser printers and copiers. Both lines are available in a variety of weights, thickness, and textures, and are engineered to produce projects with maximum visual impact. Inkjet products are also available.
The Kromekote and Knightkote Matte gradelines for Indigo presses feature a non-sapphire treated line, IN•fusion, which also runs on offset, laser, or direct imaging (DI) presses. The company also offers sapphire-treated sheets for Indigo.
Knightkote Matte, with 30-percent post-consumer waste and 50-percent total recycled content, maintains the highest PCW content for a digital coated sheet in the industry, according to the company.
The line performs on laser equipment, including Xerosx's iGen3 or Kodak's NexPress, and Knightkote Matte IN•fusion offers "superior" performance on Indigo presses. The Pegasus Digital Color Copy line was recently modernized and streamlined. It features an enhanced imaging surface for sharp image output. It is also available for HP's Indigo presses.
The well-known Carnival writing, text, and cover gradeline is available for use on HP Indigos with or without sapphire treatment, as well as for use on laser, inkjet presses, and color copiers.
The company also manufactures uncoated digital papers in its Synergy and Genesis lines, and has environmentally friendly sheets (including 100-percent post- consumer waste, FSC-certified papers) in both.
Stora Enso
(www.storaenso.com)
The upgraded 4CC (4CC sheets, 4CC Xeikon reels) from Stora Enso smooth uncoated paper meets the needs of flexible, on-demand, and variable-data printing.
The gloss-coated 4CC Gloss (4CC Gloss sheets), and matte-finished 4CC Silk (4CC Silk sheets), are suitable for most color copiers, many fast color and black-and-white printers, as well as offset pre-printing and subsequent over lasering.
4CC digi-reels are developed to perform "flawlessly" on Xeikon engines, including the Agfa Chromapress, Xerox DocuColor, and IBM Info Color.
The 4CC reels are used in many end-use environments, including financial reports and documents, retail materials such as market reports and training manuals, marketing materials including packages, direct mail, and posters, as well as corporate communications including reports, brochures, business cards, and magazines.
4CC digi-reels have been upgraded in terms of providing a wider working window and thereby more consistent performance.
4CC produces "superior" print quality and guarantees extremely sharp and well-defined images and text. This is made possible through an even smoother surface and an upgraded formation. Colors appear true to the original on every print produced, according to the company.
4CC Silk is a double-sided, multicoated silk digital art printing paper with superior print quality and a soft feel. As it is tailored specifically for high-quality digital imaging, 4CC Silk is designed for use on color copiers, color and black-and-white laser printers, and electrophotographic digital printers. It is also well-suited for pre-print.
Tembec
(www.tembec.com)
The digital production presses on which Kallima product is either qualified, via a certification process, or is being run in the field include the Xerox iGen 3, the Kodak NexPress 2100, the Xeikon generation of presses, and the HP Indigo.
Testing was conducted by Kodak Versamark (Scitex) on two Tembec-coated paperboard samples, Kallima Coated Cover C1S Plus and Kallima C1S Folding. The samples were printed using three Kodak Versamark printing stations—the PH 90 print head used on the V-series CIJ printer for water-soluble inks, the 4350 UV printer, and the 7122 solvent-based printer. The two Kallima board grades tested work well in Versamark inkjet applications for black text and line printing,
Wausau Paper
(www.wausaupapers.com)
Wausau Paper Exact Digital is a line of coated and uncoated, presentation quality, digital papers for commercial digital printing.
The line includes a full array of acid-free and lignin-free papers specially-formulated for optimal print performance in each digital printing application, including copiers, inkjet and laser printers, color copiers and commercial digital presses. It is available in all of the popular digital sizes, with basis weights ranging from 20-lb. writing to 80-lb. cover.
Wausau Paper Exact Digital Color Copy Hyper White line carries a 98 brightness, a CIE whiteness of 148 with a crisp, blue-white shade, Sheffield smoothness numbers as low as 70, and has received qualification for the Kodak NexPress digital production color presses by the Rochester Institute of Technology's (RIT) Printing Application Laboratory. And all uncoated papers in the Exact Digital line are made with an earth-friendly 30-percent post-consumer fiber.
Xerox
(www.xerox.com)
Xerox Color Xpressions+ uncoated color optimized paper delivers ultimate performance and superior image quality. The line is available in the following weights: 24-lb., 28-lb., and 32-lb. paper, 60-lb. and 80- lb. cover. Available sizes include: 8.5x11", 8.5x14", 17x11", 18x12", and 20.5x14.33".
Xerox Graphic Xpressions, uncoated designer line, comes in three classic shades—True White, Warm White, and Cream White—making it easy to bring essential image characteristics to life. It comes in the following weights: 24-lb. and 28-lb. paper, 65-lb., 80-lb., and 100-lb. cover. Available sizes include: 8.5x11", 17x11", 18x12", and 20.5x14.33".
Xerox Digital Color Select Gloss 60-lb. text is a light-weight paper for high-volume digital color printing, delivering 20 percent more pages per inch than the next lightest digital coated paper, according to the company.
Xerox Digital Color Select Gloss is also offered in 80-lb. and 100-lb. text and cover. Xerox Digital Color Elite Coated papers are available in both gloss and silk finishes, as well as 80-lb. and 100-lb. text and cover, and 110-lb. cover. Xerox coated papers are offered in a variety of sizes, and can be customized to meet specific applications.
In the Durable Specialty Papers line, Xerox offers three types of specialty papers that can be used on Xerox digital production color and black-and-white presses: Polyester Paper, DuraPaper, and Removable Signage. The Polyester Paper is available in 11", 17", and 18" sizes.
The DuraPaper line is available in 11" and 17" sizes. Removable Signage comes in 11" and 17" sizes. Additional configurations can be specially ordered through the Xerox Custom Solutions Business.
Xerox Carbonless Paper enables iGen3 press customers to produce colorful, multi-part bank statements, invoices, and claim forms faster than any other digital color system. In addition to the iGen3 press, the paper works with many of Xerox's production and office printers and multifunction devices, offering an economical and efficient way to add colorful logos and highlighted content to each sheet of a contract, direct-mail pieces, brochures, and other pieces.
author: By Liz Fedorowicz