LAYOUT : the newsletter of page design

The Stylus Pro 7900 and 9900 large format inkjet printers, just launched by Epson, make use of 11 inks and support a spectrophotometer option for upgrading the devices into accurate colour proofers. Strictly speaking, the printers use only 10 inks at any one time but they can switch between photo black and matt black cartridges automatically, making a total of 11 cartridges loaded in the printer. In addition to either black, the other ink colours are: light black, light light black, cyan, light cyan, magenta, vivid magenta, vivid light magenta, yellow, orange and green. Epson refers to these as “UltraChrome HDR (high dynamic range) fifth generation pigment inks”. The two printers also support an optional tool called Epson SpectoProofer (based on an X-Rite spectophotometer) for calibrating and certifying colour fidelity for high-end proofing.
www.epson.co.uk

Adobe has revealed that version 2 of its PDF Print Engine will soon be made available to printer manufacturers and print providers. The original PDF Print Engine allowed end-to-end workflows that managed layout documents in native PDF format, right through to output (no PostScript, no transparency flattening). Version 2 improves support for variable data printing (VDP) and in particular for the emerging PDF/VT standard.
www.adobe.com/products/pdfprintengine

LG.Philips LCD has demonstrated a 14.3-inch flexible e-paper product at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. The portable display supports 1280×800 pixels in 4096 colours, and boasts a screen size just a little smaller than A4. Lightweight and flexible, the 300-micrometre thick product is made of reflective foil substrate with a plastic coating (i.e. no glass), which means you can roll it up. It uses E Ink technology, which keeps the image on-screen even when disconnected from power, and the image itself is viewable through 180 degrees. The company has also announced its plans to release a new black-and-white e-paper product in B5 size this year, and it is expected to be the highest resolution e-paper device yet.
www.lgphilips-lcd.com/homeContain/jsp/eng/inv/inv101_j_e.jsp?BOARD_IDX=1402&languageSec=E&kinds=IN1

Small workgroup models of Konica Minolta’s bizhub range of network printers have been announced by the company. The bizhub C30P can produce 30cpm in colour, 35cpm in mono, and supports add-on finishing units and a duplexing option. The smaller bizhub C10P outputs at up to 5cpm in colour, 20cpm in mono. Both printers come with drivers for Windows, Mac and Linux, and feature built-in calibration functionality. No pricing has been revealed yet.
www.konicaminolta.co.uk

Eizo has unveiled a 24.2-inch LCD display designed for soft proofing in the professional print production market. The ColorEdge CG241W offers a native resolution of 1920×1080 pixels, 850:1 contrast ratio and 300 cd m2. It contains hardware-level, 12-bit colour calibration, and achieves 6ms response which could make it useful in the video post-production market too. £1,149.
www.eizo.com/products/graphics/cg241w

As predicted in my earlier post, Pantone launched its much-hyped Goe colour system in the UK on 10 September. Contrary to my cynicism, however, it does actually look worthwhile. Goe is a new library of spot colours that Pantone says will ‘complement’ its classic PMS product (one can only assume in the same way that Adobe used to say InDesign was supposed to ’complement’ PageMaker). Goe offers a much wider range of colours and the fan guide is better organised than Pantone’s existing spot library. The full product includes the obligatory chips for misleading clients with, and also comes with what appears to be a set of palette-like software utilities (Mac and Windows) for browsing, choosing and harmonising Goe colours. Quark has promised to support the Goe library in the near future.
Pantone UK’s website is supposedly accepting pre-orders now, although the actual purchasing page says it is ‘For US and Canada Residents Only’. The product begins shipping on 1 October, and a website for uploading and sharing custom Goe colour sets will be launched in November.
www.pantone.co.uk

AG Neovo has added another 22-inch LCD monitor to its widescreen range. The E-W22 is a full TFT LCD display offering WSXGA+ resolution (1680×1050), also supporting native DVI/HDMI graphics and HD video playback, and it includes a pair of built-in 2-watt speakers. Other specifications: 300cd/m2 brightness, 1000:1 contrast ratio, 3ms response time. £349.99 inc VAT.
www.neovouk.com/products/products.htm

Apple has replaced its iMac range of home computers with an improved design and beefier configurations. The new iMac follows the general style of the previous range but the machines are significantly slimmer and are fitted with Intel Core 2 Duo processors running at between 2GHz and 2.8GHz. There are four base models: two with 20-inch displays, two with 24-inch displays. Hard disk drives start at 250Gb rising to 500GB in the base models, and all four include an 8x double-layer DVD/CD reader and writer ’SuperDrive’. The entry-level iMac (2GHz, 1GB RAM, 250GB hard drive, ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT with 128MB) starts at £799. The top-end model (2.8GHz, 2GB RAM, 500GB hard drive, ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO with 256MB) starts at £1,459.
www.apple.com/uk/imac

An online shop called Spares4IT has opened its doors to enable notebook owners to buy difficult-to-find spare parts. The good news is that the shop sells parts dating back six years or more, which is going to be useful for extending the life of notebooks with small hard drives, inadequate memory and dead batteries. The bad news is that the site only deals in parts for “top manufacturer” notebooks: HP, Compaq, IBM and Dell.
www.spares4it.co.uk

Epson has announced three wide-format inkjet printers for general professional use: the Epson Stylus Pro 4880 (17-inch, A2+), Epson Stylus Pro 7880 (24-inch, A1+) and Epson Stylus Pro 9880 (44-inch, B0+). They are all eight-colour devices using Epson’s UltraChrome K3 inks. Each device comes with an Ethernet port as standard. £1,495, £2,395 and £4,495 respectively, available September.
The company has also announced three other inkjets supporting the same carriage widths as above, this time intended for print proofing, CAD and point-of-sale applications. The Stylus Pro 4450 (£1,395), 7450 (£2,195) and 9450 (£4,095) are faster than their other Stylus Pro equivalents, and can be used with RIP software.
www.epson.co.uk