The growing presence of Fujifilm's Revoria press in India - The Noel D'Cunha Sunday Column

GN Visvakumar
Rajams Digital Offset Prints, Chennai
Six members dedicated towards digital printing

The Revoria PC 1120 supports a broad range of stock from 52 gsm lightweight paper up to 400 gsm heavyweight paper. It is capable of handling different sizes ranging from a minimum of 98x148mm up to 330x1,200mm in simplex printing and 330x729mm in duplex printing. At Rajams we print on 90-400 GSM metallic and textured and colour paper, non-tearable paper.

The driving or deciding factors for Rajams to choose the Revoria was the fine art print quality, versatility of media and lower running cost due to the “toner out” model.

The press gives options of additional colours and 10-Bit RIP which provides for smoother vectors. The six-colour printing translates into real benefits for a print buyer or a designer. This means more colour options means more new products other than CMYK.

The smoothness compared to other toner based machines is much better. Also in the case of the Revoria Press PC1120 the work shows almost zero error in registration.

As a press purchaser one must realise that there are many presses in the market that have different attributes. Some are higher speeds than others, some are sturdy, some are homegrown RIPs and some do not. An owner must know what he wants from the press. I like more colours and versatility of media. Also I like its low running cost.

My experience in terms of savings on the press has been good. I have been able to reduce ink consumption and print waste.

The colour setting with the Revoria Press PC1120 - and the color saturation is quite good.

With AI a lot of accurate and faster registrations for example, image contrast, sharpness in text  can be done. Also the press is capable of achieving skin tones plus accurate hues. One clear advantage is, pink adds value to the prints specially on skin tones.

In terms of competitive advantage, it has aided in the switchover for offset from 100 copies to 300 copies.

Three trends I would like to share. One). The ratio of prints from a non Fujifilm press to Revoria is 60:40. Two). It has been easy for the Rajams team to adapt to the Revoria. Three). Today, 80% of short run jobs are digital. One big reason is, quick delivery is the advantage. If there is a disadvantage, it is the size.

Prakash Gawas
Suraj.Com, Goa
14 members dedicated to digital printing

Today a major chunk of our work is happening on the Revoria press.

The Fujifilm Revoria PC 1120 - can print six colours in a single pass. It has a unique capability of creating overlays and underlays using a combination of metallic colours like gold and silver in addition to having white ink and clear ink plus the gamut extension colour of pink. The system also has an option of a unique textured toner that handles the textured paper smoothly. It can produce on 90-400 GSM metallic and textured and colour paper, non-tearable paper for the work we do. This includes, brochures, visiting cards, everything related to branding.

The highlights have the work with speciality colours like gold and silver, plus its speed efficiency and variety of media compatibility. It helps us win with colours and speed. The press prints at 120-ppm (A4) and can do 60-ppm SRA3 with full six colours. Also it ensures enhancements of presentability of what you are printing, especially invitation letters where customers need creativity.

We work on an on-demand basis and printing certificates and invitations using speciality colors have been very effective for us. Three things I admire are: Reproduction of colours are excellent, smoothness is better, and registration is wonderful.

We have reduced the print wastage because there is no jamming of paper. Also the colour setting and colour saturation is 100% accurate. The Revoria Press PC1120 is capable of achieving skin tones plus accurate hues. As I mentioned, in the photo segment, the pink toner is very effective as it enhances brightness and texture of skin tones.

We encourage our customers to use a completely digital workflow by explaining how digital print can be a major factor for time and accuracy. Today digital print has gained acceptance across all segments in our city. Many print buyers are opting for digital print. The main reason is, brands are moving to less inventory or no inventory model and prefer to print on-demand. We see huge potential for digital print in future as well.

Sachin Katira
Zoomin.com, Mumbai
15 members dedicated to digital printing

Most of our work on the press is art and special papers along with the Revoria Flow RIP. Our focus is photobooks, prints, calendars.

The things I like about the Revoria Press wPC1120 is its high quality and low Capex. Also, the press is simple to use and print quality with special colours is outstanding although the cost is on a higher side. For the buyer the benefit is, it gives him more options to choose from. My operators say that the registration tolerance is very high.

It has an economical run cost (due to the toner out model), . The cost is lower than the press we were using before because we end up paying for print usage instead of all in click charge. We have been able to reduce ink consumption and print waste. Plus texts are very sharp owing to 10 bit RIP processing and image enhancement features are great.

The break even is faster due to low Capex. We print roughly 3,000 sheets a day. We need a 60% utilisation rate to make digital print profitable.

Jatin Malik
Print Mart Digital, New Delhi
15 members dedicated to digital printing

We use all digital print media ranging from 90 GSM to 400 GSM and CorelDraw and Photoshop along with the Revoria Flow RIP. We specialise in the Print on Demand category with a special focus on photo products. Our production is at 120 PP with special colours simply added to the digital POD category to get the higher output for a given time period on a daily basis.

We can produce 40,000 prints per day and night during two shifts. 

We have a MGI 3DS and 3D1 for embellishment and complete digital setup with a lamination machine as well as other finishing machines.

The key deciding factor to choose the Revoria Press PC1120 was the special colour such as white, gold, clear etc. We realised this helps us gain a premium.

Also the machine is robust and consistent in colours, and the support from the engineers gives us an added advantage as compared with its peer segment. Special colours give enhanced advantage.

Today, the digital printing format market has matured over the period of time and yet the requirement of special colour was a big gap the machine so far able to bridge the gap from our perspective.

We deploy different media and we are able to benchmark the press in terms of numbers. We have many repeat customers thanks to print registration. This has helped us build a strong market presence.

It is cost effective with the SSMC model which according to us is a revolutionary step. We have saved on cost per print basis as well as saving ink consumption on ink waste. Also, with SSMC we have leveraged our costs. We have checked our toner consumption per job. As a result we can quote the price at very competitive rates for major clients. The print has sharpness with high quality resolution.

Digital printing has gained currency for instant printing. In the post-Covid era major corporations are going more and more digital. As a result the viability of digital print has increased significantly.

Suraj Jain
Screen Art, New Delhi
Five members dedicated to digital printing

We produce lots of books and booklets and magazines for which we deploy 70-400 gsm coated and uncoated media, vector illustration softwares. Any commercial offset printer in India with strong pre-press can use the machine for short-runs and create a differentiated value. Other segments include quick printing and photos labs. There are elements built in the RIP that cater to the photo segment 

The things which we admire about the kit is multiple dots screen available and switchable in one click auto quality checking and optimisation while running. The six-colour printing translates into real benefits. It gives printers and designers more options to choose from. Also it offers good and smooth halftone; also lower emboss of toner and balanced density. One thing I want from the press is less warming up time during media shift over

We’ve stretched ourselves for book printing. The lesser cost of print while printing a book type job. Otherwise the same cost of toner and SSMC as compared to other devices. The toner out model reduces toner cost as compared to other presses because I run book jobs and these jobs run on very low coverage.

And yes, we have been able to reduce ink consumption and print waste. While running a low coverage job as I do on books, the ink cost is much lesser as compared to other presses but it is the same while running high coverage jobs. Black and white prints are always costlier on Revoria Press as compared to other presses. The Revoria Press PC1120 is capable of achieving skin tones plus accurate hues. The skin tones are better than the previous device.

The Revoria machine and RIP - both combined are very effective and productive. The equipment is designed for ease of use where colour changing/station changes can be done in minutes by the operator. Our practical experience of colour change is under five minutes (between special colors), which is unheard of in the industry. The RIP allows for file creation, preparation, ripping, concurrent usage, imposition, composition, conversions, design interfaces, at fast speeds. 

We print 10,000 prints a day. The utilisation rate which is necessary to make digital print profitable is 10,000 daily (minimum) and 300k min per month.

Sandeep Beniwal
RK Exxpress, Jaipur
22 members dedicated to digital printing

In 2015 we invested in a HP Indigo 5600. Now we do wedding photobook work on the Revoria with non-tearable, glossy, metallic sheets, lustre and so on. One can choose between shuttle-feeding technology, standard feeding, staple finishing, booklet finishing, de-curlers, stackers and a unique static eliminator designed for non-paper substrates, such as films and metallic, and a variety of other options.

The six-colour printing translates into real benefits for a print buyer and a designer. But I feel some enhancement can be done on skin tones with pick. The registration is much better as compared to other toner-based presses.

It is good and cost effective. The colour setting is very fast and there is high colour saturation.

The main thing is the comfort level of the team. The comfort level is 99 percent. We produce 8000 to 12,000 prints a day.

Pawan Kholiya
Anushka Colour Lab, Jaipur
15 members dedicated to digital printing

The Revoria Press PC1120 has enhanced print quality in our press. The resolution is better, the colour quality is rich. Skin tones are smooth which is required by our industry. 

The ratio of prints from the Revoria Press PC1120 as compared to prints from any other press is very good. Also the team has a good comfort level and as a result there is 80% output from the Revoria. We produce 5,000 to 8,000 prints a day.

RIP and proofing technologies have advanced much faster than engine technologies and are a small fraction of the total cost of a system. We have tried to merge the two in order to ensure cost effectiveness and eliminate the problems.

Today digital print has gained acceptance across all segments in our city. In the post-Covid era many more print buyers in the city are opting for digital print. One is easy availability. The other is quality.