Colordyne Technologies is partnering with EFI to integrate its Fiery Impress digital frontend (DFE) into UV and water-based inkjet digital printing engines.

Fiery Impress is brand-new turnkey inkjet print server technology. This builds on EFI’s DFE heritage, whereby over two million Fiery servers have been installed worldwide, making the technology ‘the leading DFE in digital printing’. The launch of Impress – a ready-to-go, off-the-shelf platform that requires less time and less cost for hardware integration – streamlines the process needed to bring Fiery technology to new industrial and packaging applications.

Specifically, Fiery Impress ensures users can complete more jobs per shift due to a suite of file preparation and make-ready tools to automate many pre-press tasks. Fiery Impress technology ‘efficiently’ handles colour management, including extended colour gamuts beyond CMYK, while delivering accurate ink cost estimates to help converters ensure profitability. Additional available tools, such as Fiery JobFlow pre-press automation workflow software, can eliminate manual step-and-repeat work to help converters get digital and hybrid jobs to press faster. Converters can also take advantage of more opportunities in multi-SKU, versioning and serialisation by using a Fiery Impress DFE streaming option, which affords RIP-while-printing capabilities for continuous, high-volume, variable data printing.

Further benefits are native Adobe PDF Print Engine (APPE) processing and PDF 2.0 support; the Fiery Command WorkStation operator interface for digital print job management; and option to connect with a full suite of free and paid EFI IQ Cloud business intelligence and analytics systems. The Fiery Impress DFE can also integrate with numerous label and packaging MIS platforms, connecting converters’ digital operations to company-wide workflows.

This partnership makes Colordyne the first manufacturer in the world delivering UV LED and water-based inkjet systems that feature Fiery Impress. This will be realised ‘in the iron’ at Labelexpo Americas 2022, where Colordyne’s high-speed, high-resolution process colour inkjet print engines on display feature Fiery Impress.

For Colordyne, having its inkjet engines driven by Fiery print server technology delivers ‘premium quality inkjet production’ for durable UV LED labels, as well as water-based ink printing for food and beverage and other CPG brands seeking eco-friendly, sustainable labels. These systems can be specified as both standalone inkjet digital label printing and retrofitted to installed flexo presses.

In relation to the latter setup, Taylor Buckthorpe, director of sales and marketing at Colordyne Technologies, explained, ‘Using Fiery Impress with our 3800 Series inkjet engines, converters can retrofit their existing flexo presses at approximately half the cost of a new hybrid narrow web press.’

He continued, ‘The comprehensive set of integrated Fiery products add a wealth of capabilities throughout the print process, helping manufacturing facilities produce more with their presses. When it comes to next-level automation and colour management, we look at Fiery as the strongest partner to work with. Together, we will help converters drive efficiencies, while increasing quality and reliability as they grow their businesses with digital print.’

John Henze, vice president of sales and marketing, EFI Fiery, said, ‘This exciting new partnership with Colordyne Technologies represents an important market opportunity that combines the industry’s leading DFE technology with Colordyne’s remarkable inkjet engines for hybrid and digital label converting.’

The Fiery Impress DFE is also the first technology for Colordyne equipment capable of supporting APPE for a native, end-to-end PDF workflow. As noted by Mark Lewiecki, senior product manager at Adobe, ‘The Fiery Impress DFE will open doors to new opportunities in manufacturing workflows, especially for labeled products. Colordyne customers will benefit from the power of APPE, built on the same Adobe technologies employed by Adobe Acrobat and Illustrator CC. The result is maximum reliability, from design to proof to final output.

‘Adobe and EFI continue to bring innovative technologies to market. We are happy to see that Colordyne and its customers will show the way forward in this dynamic growth segment.’