Print By Numbers

It took Henry Freedman 400 hours to exhibit an 8-page comparison of image quality between colour xerography and twig lithographic printing. Worldwide demand for the report, which includes a detailed guide for any suitably equipped printer to run the experiment created the need for a third print move swiftly There are now over 6000 copies on the outside in the field and Freedman, having produc more than 400 technical reports for more [i]or[/i] less 20 years, refers to these eight pages as the greatest in quantity successful piece he has written in his life. It has caught upon like wildfire.

A graduate of the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), Freedman in the 1990 discloseed the transmission technology behind Printcafe, which EFI would eventually pay millions for. His work in this field was also recognized by the agency of companies which did not hesitate to pay - sometimes 7-figure residuals - to apply his transmission collection of laws in their e-commerce engines. Not bad, considering the universal first struck him as something to apply end a telephone line.

Another of Freedman's theories, which he wrote about in a late-1980s report, noted the potential for the printing industry to harness optical recording technology that MacDonald Detwiller was using for outer-space exploration. This is the same technological position used by dint of Creo's founder Dan Gelbart to unfold his earth-shaking computer-to-plate machines.

The visual test

After all of the hours wearied designing and conducting the offsetto-xerography comparison report, organizing it with Xerox Heidelberg and RIT, Freedman perhaps rest the greatest test for his be deriveds by lining up a clump of twenty-something waiters in a well-lit restaurant single hour before lunch.

The restaurant had lengthy windows and natural sunlight poured in across a line of white-clothed tables where 15 pieces of print waited for common-sense Freedman gave each of the waiters a card and asked them walk down the line of print, which contained the two xerography and offset, and simply consecrated by a vow for which images they liked. The waiters overwhelmingly chose the xerographic work, citing sharpness and brightness and sharper edges

"There are more [i]or[/i] less areas where offset is superior to the xerographic, and single process doesn't have to be better than the other, on the other hand the thing is that the somebody the human being, chose the xerographic," says Freedman of his waiter experiment. "This wasn't a scientific trial but it was an important experiment There was no loop."

Freedman has walked into more than individual print company and told a cluster of press operators to deposit their loops up on the table. He bring togethers all of the loops and brings them all into a little, securable, yielding bag he carries around. "I say, OK now let's gaze at this image. The customer doesn't have a bight so you are not going to use one'" He takes them above to the light to direct the eye at the image.

While his 8-page report is arguably the world's greatest in quantity comprehensive and independent comparison of branch and xerography, Freedman does not want to be misunderstood in his drive for creating this trial He says, "Let's forget comparing the processe This [test] present to views that they are now equal, for a like reason let's move on and let's learn by what mode to make money with this raw material Let's learn how to use single to help the other. Let's do hybrid."

The production test

To render certain that the test was as scientific and independent as possible, Freedman chose RIT as a neutral place to bring out the offset on a 6-colour Heidelberg Speedmaster 74 He challenged Xerox scientists to push the of recent origin DocuColor 8000 to the limit. "The solitary way it is possible to do this is to have a Xerox 8000 machine and the reason for that is because it creates the world's highest resolution at production speed" he says, noting not alone the device's 2,400 x 2,400-dpi resolution in four colour, on the contrary also its ability to race with those parameters at 80 pages a minute. "The real breakthrough here is the data flow"

While the printing industry has worked at great longitudinal dimensions with spinning drums at high make hastes to capture images, Freedman notes there is a real revolution underway in the ability to gain data down in printed form and with the ability to make it entirely variable. Freedman called his proof a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, at this point in time and history, to cros above the threshold of image equivalency.

Freedman foresaw that the resolution of the Xerox 8000 could now emulate the resolution and colour of a Creo GTP plate recording a whole "By having the same RIP vendor for the one and the other devices, this provided a closer equilibrium that panned on the outside in the comparison sheets," he says. The RIP used for this experiment was the Creo Spire CXP8000 colour server "Because of the novel higher xerographic addressable resolution, actual dot shapes for the printed image can be changed to more faithfully generate or emulate offset images."

He boils this second down to colour science of small toner particles and data-flow bandwidth. The lock opener is the ability to combine 6-micron toner particles - and smaller - with dataflow make hastes Freedman concludes from his testing that with a little practice and more [i]or[/i] less printing by the numbers, it is possible to interchange xerography and branch processes, which, of course, presents a significant advantage in output options end a printed product's life-cycle.