Digital People

Woods of Perth

Woods of perth - from early printing presses to the HP Indigo machine

Woods of Perth was founded 175 years ago in 1830 and has over time grown into one of the UK largest printing companies. In the 175 years of operation Woods of Perth has invested in new inventions, ideas and technologies and operating in the 21st century is no exception. Woods of Perth now offers an unrivalled combination of quality litho and digital printing, finishing and excellence in customer service. Woods of Perth have invested in workflow with a full Creo Prinergy solution which includes an online client portal, direct access to monitor job progress, online proofing and approval. This will mean a direct link from Prepress to Management Information System giving visibility of all jobs for clients. Woods printing and finishing departments are made up of high quality equipment manned by experienced operators who have the vast experienced required to provide a full service for all print requirements.

Woods of Perth’s services include:
Prepress
PDF Workflow, Contract Proofing, Online Job submission and approval, Artwork & Scanning.

Large Format Digital Print
60" wide output, UV resistant inks, wide range of paper, vinyl, canvas etc, mounting, laminating & encapsulating.

CTP - Computer to Plate
Fully automated plateline, B1 to B3, PlateManager for 24 hour working and plate remakes, exposure control.

Press Room
B1 8 colour - 4/4 Perfector, 2 x B2 5 colour, B3 4 colour
and Indigo B3 1050 digital press with personalisation.

Finishing
Folding B1 to A5, Stitching, Collating, Drilling.

Lamination
SRA3 to B1, gloss or matt film, optional etch varnish

Cutting and creasing
MK Die Cutter - to 720mm x 1020mm, online strip out.

Fulfilment
Table work, lasering, polybagging, shrink wrapping.

Despatch
Dedicated fleet of 5 vehicles, storage and mailing services.

Making the Choice

The original decision to move into Digital Printing was not taken lightly, in fact it took over twelve months, when you see the type of work Woods of Perth produce you can understand why!
Michael Eddington, Chairman of Woods said “We knew that sooner or later we would have to get a Digital Press in order to complement our four Mitsubishi 8 colour presses. Everything we looked at was either too expensive or not good enough quality which was the problem in using digital copiers, we needed a liquid ink digital press. Our clients expect quality and we have set ourselves certain standards, I would not be happy sending out a job that is not up to scratch.

We seriously looked at digital solutions over a two year period and invested in an early Indigo Press. Once we had mastered the operation and production issues we started looking for a new solution as production levels were rising rapidly, this exercise had confirmed that Indigo was the solution for Woods. At under £100k for a new six colour 1000 series machine it was affordable and the quality was superb. The installation took two days and then the training began. The training from Digital People was conducted on our premises and on our own Indigo which equipped Woods with new knowledge and techniques.

The Digital People have a truly excellent team of people who have been a pleasure to do business with, the training was very thorough and when the trainer left we felt really comfortable with the machine. They have been back on several occasions helping us with new more complicated applications and recently helped us move it to our new premises.

Short-run digital printing complements our existing Litho based business by filling a gap in the service we provide to our clients. Smaller quantities become a viable option especially to the small businesses we service, this because the start-up costs are so much lower than conventional printing. If you only want 150 full colour business cards digital printing can provide them at a realistic price. Personalisation is now a real option for Woods and by the use of variable data, business cards to brochures can be given the personal touch by changing names and addresses, colour and images. Digital print remains competitive for some items of print in quite large quantities, but inevitably there comes a point where litho becomes more economical. As we have both options in-house, as well as our state-of-the-art Workflow system, our clients are guaranteed the most cost effective, and accurate, answer – all under one roof.”

How is HP Indigo technology able to match Litho for quality?

Today, the HP Indigo Digital Offset Colour printing process is the only variable imaging printing technology that can equal or exceed the quality, colour range and substrate compatibility of conventional offset lithographic printing.
Though some xerographic processes can produce high gloss toner images, they cannot match the gloss of the substrate surface, thereby producing high "gloss contrast"- which is perceived as poor quality. HP’s liquid ElectroInk uses oil to bind and distribute its pigment-carrying particles, which are about one micron in size, and consequently capable of creating much finer detail and thinner printed ink films. Xerographic presses require multiple printing units. Single sided models have four printing units, one per colour, and double-sided presses have eight printing units - four on each side of the paper path. Therefore an important consideration when making comparisons between these and the single unit HP Indigo presses is simplicity. HP’s colour switching technology enables single station printing presses, which results in compact presses, less parts to maintain, lower potential for things to go wrong, and a more accurate colour registration. Ultimately, the key issues for organizations investing in digital colour printing center on quality, speed, cost per page, versatility and product range. HP’s technology places it as a leading contender in all these respects. So, the customer has choices to make: if the customer requires offset quality, the choice is between mechanical offset printing and HP Digital Offset Colour printing. If the customer requires digital printing, the choice is between xerographic-quality digital printing, HP’s offset-quality digital printing. However, if the customer requires digital printing of offset quality, there is only one choice: HP Digital Offset Colour printing.

Dealing with dot gain

Dot gain - the tendency for printed dots and lines to spread out and enlarge as the ink image passes through the pressure of transfer - is consistent and predictable on HP Indigo Digital Offset Colour presses. HP Indigo presses have built-in dot gain compensation which corrects the exposed dot size so that it prints to the desired size. In addition, HP Indigo presses automatically adjust the optical density (i.e. appearance in terms of lightness or darkness) and dot size so that they always appear the same, copy after copy. With a conventional offset lithographic press, there are wider fluctuations during a run caused by factors that include: fluctuating ink and water temperature; water/ink balance and their tendency to emulsify; plate and blanket wear; and atmospheric humidity altering the absorbency of the paper. Neither automatic nor manual adjustment can completely iron these out, because there is always a time lag between the problem appearing and the adjustment taking effect, during which many copies are printed. With HP Indigo presses there are fewer operating variables, and the optical density of the printed image can be electronically set by the operator within a wide operational range. Once set, a proprietary closed loop mechanism, called Colour Adjust, regulates and monitors the print density and the dot size in real time throughout the job run. Just as importantly, Colour Adjust will remember the adjustments for repeat runs in future, meaning that a repeat job will be identical to the original - this is difficult to achieve with lithography which depends to a great extent on operator skill.

Digital People: 0845 130 1445
Woods of Perth: 01738 622244