The setup time required for traditional die cutting is considerable, and this type of cutting tends to generate a lot of waste because of mis-registration. Distortions in material or print are common in this application, making registration with traditional methods particularly problematic.

To minimize this problem, customers often limit sheet sizes, which create inefficiencies in printing. Weeding of imperfect kiss-cuts is labor-intensive and creates even more waste. Waste rates of 20% or more are common for jobs that require tight tolerances.

Labels and decals in all shapes imaginable with or without doming effects are effectively promoting the worlds most popular brands. Capital Imaging can help you produce top-quality, precision-cut graphics.

The digital cutting process eliminates the need for dies, dramatically reducing overall production time, and costs. Not only is there no waiting for dies to be made, there is also no storage, no maintenance, and no management of dies; instead, digital cutting requires less time for setup, allows for greater design flexibility and on-the-fly changes, and dramatically reduces material waste.

Capital Imaging’s Zünd digital cutters with vision registration require almost no set-up time and deliver perfect registration. The vision registration system compensates for all print and material distortions, reducing waste to less than 1%. You can always print maximum printable sheet sizes and consequently double or triple printing efficiency. Kiss-cuts are perfect, making faultless weeding quick and easy.

Die-less, digital cutting systems equipped with vision registration open up a whole new world of design and material choices.

Carton, corrugated cardboard and plastics, expanded PVC, soft or rigid foamcore, layered aluminum substrates – no matter what material, shape, or structure your customers are looking for, Capital Imaging’s cutting systems deliver every time, at unprecedented speeds, in perfect registration.

The post Digital Printing and Cutting of Decals and Labels. appeared first on Digital Printing & Visual Communications.

By eliminating expensive glues and laminates, printing direct to ridged or rolled substrates becomes the ideal solution for all your POP displays, indoor and outdoor signage, and vehicle graphic needs. Quicker turn times and cost effective “short runs” mean less hassle and more savings for you.

Strengths:

UV resistant and waterproof – this makes it good for outdoor as well as indoor graphics

Cost effective for short to large runs

Substrates:

RIGID: Styrene, Sintra, Gator Board, Foamcore, Coroplast, Dibond, Tagboard, plexiglass, many others

Digital Cutting

The Digital Cutter is a fully automated, digital cutting system capable of creating custom cutouts for your small and large format signs and graphics. The Digital Die Cutter opens up unlimited creative possibilities for your POP displays, trade show graphics, ceiling danglers and more.

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From a big-picture financial perspective, printing costs represent 3 percent to 6 percent of corporate revenue, regardless of whose cost center is paying for it. Streamline and reduce your printing costs with Capital Imaging’s business document experts. We specialize in business document printing of everything from business cards to proposals, manuals, and annual reports, to display graphics, signs, banners, sales, and marketing materials. We’re fast… very fast. This means you save time and money.

The post Is In-house printing free for my department because printing costs are centralized? appeared first on Digital Printing & Visual Communications.

Not only are you shelling out dollars for monthly equipment payments, you are also paying for click cost, and variable supplies such as toner and paper. Other hidden costs linked to in-house printing are valuable facilities space that could have higher-impact uses, payroll and productivity costs, long-term leases, overage fees, and shipping costs for transporting documents from your location to where they need to go. A hidden cost business owner don’t often think of is the cost of mistakes. If a job as to be re-printed due to an error or mistake, you pay for the extra paper, ink, clicks, labor, and any finishing work that was done prior to the mistake being caught.

When it comes to business document printing, Capital Imaging is simply the best; we’ll meet all your printing needs with flexible, scalable solutions and no hidden costs. … and we’re fast – Very Fast!

The post More on why In-house printing is more expensive than outsourcing. appeared first on Digital Printing & Visual Communications.

Printing Myth: Digital printing is more expensive than offset printing.

Fact: Not true — actually, quite the opposite is true. There are hidden costs associated with offset printing such as minimum print runs which means you pay for more than you need. Also, offset printers have overruns of approximately 10% of the print run which you pay for as well. In digital printing, you pay only for the quantity you need, no overruns or extra inventory to throw away because you had to accept minimums.

The hidden cost associated with in house printers is the labor of the employee and staff to print and finish the job. Another area of hidden of in house is the cost of making print run mistakes. When you make a mistake with your in-house printer, you pay for the wasted paper, ink, copy clicks, and labor. You also pay to rerun the job. When a digital print shop makes the mistake, they pay for the paper, ink, clicks, and labor and they pay to rerun the job.

Whether your print run is one copy or a couple of thousand an on demand printer may be the best alternative in keeping your budget in check and your cost of printing low.

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Exaggeration? A little…but not a lot. But how? Well, when understood digital printing puts them in the same arena as large companies.

Many small business owners do not understand the benefits of digital printing. I hope to explain how digital printing for small business owners levels the playing field allowing them to compete with large corporations with big budgets.

Simply stated on demand digital printing is the ability to print a document or image almost immediately upon request. You can print a document at your desk on demand; choose a document on your desktop and click print so that it prints on your desktop printer. You have just printed a document on demand.

Why then do you need Capital Imaging’s print on demand capabilities you ask? Well, our certified digital print technicians, who are experts in on demand digital printing, operate our professional grade digital presses. Our digital press prints professional quality images onto many types of papers with quality equal to that of offset and at a much lower cost for smaller print runs. Run lengths for digital printing starts at one and goes up to a few thousand. If variable and personalized digital printing is what you require then the run length is unlimited.

The high cost of using standard printing for small print runs has often prevented businesses from developing printed products that could improve their communication or marketing with their clients. The value of print on demand, however, makes such products much more economically feasible. Digital printing also allows small and medium size businesses to compete with the big boy corporations with unlimited budgets. The fast turnaround, high quality, and affordability of digital printing allows for a truly professional quality in smaller print runs.

Digital print on demand, unlike standard printing, has no front-end costs. You pay only for the cost of printing your product, not for the time needed to set up a standard press. The lack of initial set-up also makes digital print on demand a faster process—your materials are ready to be printed the moment the printer receives your file. The lower cost and faster turnaround make limited runs far more affordable. If you are interested in printing a smaller run of documents—anything from one to 3,000 or more depending on the size, print on demand is an excellent alternative.

Digital printing has many advantages over traditional methods. Some applications of note include:

Desktop publishing – inexpensive home and office printing is only possible because of digital processes that bypass the need for printing plates.

Variable data printing – uses database-driven print files for the mass personalization of printed materials.

DIY publishing – a cost effective way of printing a small number of poetry, magazines, graphic novel or art books.

Fine art – archival digital printing methods include real photo paper exposure prints and giclée prints on watercolor paper using pigment based inks.

Print on Demand – digital printing is used for personalized printing for example, children’s books customized with a child’s name, photo books (such as wedding photo books), or any other short run books of varying page quantities and binding techniques.

Advertising – often used for outdoor banner advertising and event signage, in trade shows, in the retail sector at point of sale or point of purchase, and in personalized direct mail campaigns.

Photos – digital printing has revolutionized photo printing in terms of the ability to retouch and color correct a photograph before printing.

Digital printing lets you print very small quantities and have them delivered fast – very fast! Unlike offset printing presses, which use plates made from film, the digital presses take your digital files and print from them.

Going Digital means!

Printing a small quantity of your corporate brochures in time for that trade show, conference, meeting, or proposal is an advantage of going digital. Digital printing makes getting business cards for that last-minute business trip same day or next day. Try that with an offset printer and they’ll laugh at you.

Printing different versions of your piece, like a brochure or a sales and marketing collateral for different markets and test out their effectiveness before you settle on one look is easy and simple with digital printing.

Your salespeople can have their own version of sell sheets or other printed materials, tailored specifically for his/her own clients or prospects and territory.

Changing content with digital printing is fast and easy, allowing you to keep your material current and accurate. So, rather than print 8000 brochures per year, print 2000 brochures per quarter and change outdated and incorrect information without waste.

Speaking of waste, you can KISS ALL OF THOSE UNUSED PRINTED PIECES GOODBYE! With digital printing, you can reduce or even eliminate waste by only printing what you need.

Digital printing may not serve all of your printing needs, but it sure comes in handy for small runs and quick turnaround jobs. If you’re not sure if you need or will benefit from digital printing we’ll be happy to consult with you. Our consultation is expert and free.  You will be amazed at the benefit digital printing offers.

The post Will your small business benefit from digital printing? appeared first on Digital Printing & Visual Communications.

My company, Capital Imaging, is a digital printing company located in Lansing, Michigan. The purpose of my blog is to inform, educate, enlighten, and wow my many wonderful customers and prospective customers about the many advantages of digital printing.

I don’t think this blogging thing will be so bad or scary. After all, I know digital printing. Capital Imaging has been a digital printing company since our humble beginnings back in 1995. My wife and I were the only employ’s and… we had no customers. We would stand on the sidewalk in front of our digital printing center and ask people as they walked by if they needed anything printed. Our first months prints produced were approximately 71 copies. In fact, the first job we ever did for a customer was to fax a single document to another fax number going somewhere through cyber space. Moreover, we didn’t even print the document we faxed.

Seventeen years later, we digitally print millions of documents per month most of our print projects come to us from cyberspace. Cyberspace – the electronic medium of computer networks, in which online communication takes place. Unthinkable in its complexity.

So, Stay tuned to my blog and I’ll share with you seventeen years of lessons learned, knowledge acquired, and how to leverage digital document printing for your business.

It’s way cool stuff. From Posters, signs, and banners, to business cards, marketing materials, manuals, reports, and proposals, digital printing could be perfect for your business.

The post Digital Printing – It’s a jungle out there. appeared first on Digital Printing & Visual Communications.