Customers in Australia and Europe will receive Epson’s L-4033 series digital inkjet label printers with the new digital front-end (DFE) from Esko as standard, while it will be an option for those buying presses from the series sold in other parts of the world.

Esko saidits bespoke DFE, which will be used on the six-colour Surepress L-4033A and the seven-colour L-4033W (white ink) digital inkjet label presses, will create efficiencies in production by streamlining the pre-press and workflow process.

Esko’s customised DFE incorporates the software manufacturer’s Color Engine 12 which enables the print machines to process files of up to seven colours. The partnership is aimed at label converters and commercial printers looking to expand their service offer.

Jef Bogaerts, head of commercial partnerships at Esko said: "As the label and packaging market increasingly transitions from analogue to digital solutions, manufacturers of digital printing equipment are looking for DFE alternatives that can effectively address workflow and job processing issues specific to their industry.

[Photos: Epson shows off high-tech centre]

"We specifically worked on this with Epson to enable printers to switch seamlessly between traditional printing methods and digital printing and meet the high level of colour matching that is necessary. This can also help printers who want to diversify into label printing."

He added: "Creating this partnership gives Epson the ability to deliver six- or seven-colour digital print with a very high level of automation.

"Our DFE streamlines the process of importing designs, doing layouts, colour management, RIPing and pushing it to output and all this is combined in a single user interface."

Bogaerts said that dynamic valuable data plug-ins were also available from Esko for the DFE that enabled that addition of barcoding and personalisation data.

Epson general manager Kitahara Tsuyoshi said: "Combined with Epson’s reputation for high-quality, affordable printing solutions, this DFE powered by Esko will bring even more value and automation to customers serving the digital label printing market."

This article originally appeared at printweek.com

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