ROCHESTER, NY—The winning entry of Imageworx in Miraclon’s 2019 Global Flexo Innovation Awards, The Art of Magic postage stamps, was notable for two “firsts,” according to the company: the first US postal stamps ever printed with flexography, and the first to exploit 3D micro optical printing. Those add to the stamps’ award in the 2019 FTA Excellence in Flexography Awards. Unveiled in Las Vegas by the United States Postal Service—and world-famous magician David Copperfield—three of the stamps featured animated 3D effects, including a white rabbit popping out of a top hat.
Technically Challenging
Micro optical lens printing is technically challenging at the best of times and would be regarded by many as beyond the capabilities of flexography. Jeff Toepfer of Imageworx explained: “Producing art and plates to use with micro lenses is an extremely difficult imaging process, calling for the highest level of precision. To meet the resolution requirements for the stamps, we had to image 139,500 interlaced pixels across the web—and do so with perfect 1:1 pixel integrity to produce the interference patterns that create the illusion of movement.”
He added that, to the best of his knowledge, Imageworx is the only prepress company in the world currently offering micro-optical lens array prepress for flexography. He also gives due credit to the Kodak Flexcel NX technology: “Nothing else can produce such small images on a flexo plate. Without it, our success in micro imaging would be very limited. It’s incredible.”
Professional Curiosity
Imageworx says it places technical design innovation at its heart, inspired by what Jeff describes as “a high level of professional curiosity. We’re constantly working at developing new technologies and improving existing ones.” When Jeff’s father Jerry founded Imageworx in 1997, he did so with a philosophy that demanded the company keep pushing the boundaries of innovation—namely, that if you help customers realize their most difficult projects you will have a customer for life.
At the outset, the business was supplying separations and plates for dry offset and narrow web applications, but today flexography accounts for 90 percent of the business. The focus, however, remains where it’s always been, on the quality-minded higher reaches of the market, a segment that Jeff says is growing steadily thanks to the improvements in flexographic technology in recent years.
“What’s happened has been evolutionary rather than revolutionary, but no less profound for that. Every component—ink, doctor blades, aniloxes, plate mounting, imaging, plates and presses—has steadily improved. As a result, quality is no longer an issue, and flexo is now an economical print process of choice.”
Quality
Imageworx produces plates capable of holding micro text as small as 1/4-pt, and images and holds dots all the way down to 0.2 percent at 175 linescreens. Its proprietary “SERO HDM” brand of hybrid screening technology produces perfectly smooth gradations and an extended tonal range, without edges where the dot breaks down. This enables a nearly imperceptible fade to zero, eliminating the need to hold a minimum dot in non-printed areas to avoid the hard break formerly common in flexography. Besides 3D optics, these capabilities have opened up other new markets such as security printing, as well as delivering exceptional quality levels in process color printing.
The “professional curiosity” mentioned earlier means Imageworx doesn’t wait for new markets and applications to come knocking but seeks them out proactively through an R&D department tasked with identifying markets likely to benefit from the company’s advanced flexographic technology. The next step is to identify the market’s requirements, develop a suitable product, then test and perfect it.
For print trials, Imageworx partners with flexographic press manufacturer MPS, previously using the latter’s demonstration facility in Green Bay, WI. “The acid test of any new idea takes place on the press,” said Jeff, “so understanding what happens in the pressroom is essential. The Art of Magic stamps are a good example: in pre-production trials at MPS we successfully ran the job at the 250 fpm speed the customer demanded.”
A Flexographic Future for Flexible Packaging
Looking to the future, Jeff expects Imageworx’s recent rapid expansion into new markets and applications will continue, as flexography steadily wins work from offset and gravure. “In the wide web market, the major trend we see is migration from more expensive gravure technology.”
On the back of this, he adds, Imageworx is now making significant inroads into the flexible packaging sector. “In just a few years, we’ve seen strong growth in flexibles, to the point where they now account for around 35 percent of our work, mostly shrink-wrap and bag materials for consumer products.”
He attributed the success to the combination of Kodak Flexcel NX and SERO HDM. “Wide web printers have often struggled to reproduce highlight dots. SERO and Flexcel NX enable high-resolution imaging and finely tuned, microscopic dot structures, broadening the color gamut for flexographic printers by delivering a smoother breakdown of highlight dots. We have the ability to determine ideal dot structures on the plates, delivering top-quality results on short-run jobs. We can also apply separate screening algorithms that maintain dot stability on long runs, even beyond 1 million impressions.”
Jeff added that productivity increases. “Press speed is a major purchasing factor in flexible packaging prepress and plates. Sero HDM and Flexcel NX have allowed some customers to increase running-speeds by up to 500 feet per minute.”