digital press – Global Graphics Software blog

November 10, 2021November 10, 2021

APS Engineering joins Global Graphics Software Partner Network

A warm welcome to our new Global Graphics Software Partner Network member: APS Engineering.

APS Engineering creates cutting-edge ink delivery systems for all stages of production for inkjet printing, additive manufacturing, and microdispensing. The company has worked together with Global Graphics Software to create the first OPC UA-enabled ink delivery system for SmartDFE, a full software and hardware stack that adds print to the fully automated smart factory.

SmartDFE™ is designed to be the heart of a fully automated manufacturing system and transform the role of the digital press in the smart print factory of the future.

OPC UA is the interoperability standard for the secure and reliable exchange of data in the industrial automation space and in other industries. It is platform-independent and ensures the seamless flow of information among devices from multiple vendors.

The OPC UA-enabled ink delivery system developed together with APS Engineering can communicate with anything in the industrial inkjet ecosystem. This means that the press can be monitored remotely from an iPad or from a browser on the desktop, or that data can be stored from the ink delivery system in a historical archive database to enable other functions like predictive maintenance.

In addition to fluid delivery systems, APS Engineering also offers printbar design and consulting services for custom projects. We look forward to working together in the future.

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September 28, 2021April 5, 2022

Working with spot colors in Harlequin Core

Whenever we start working with a company who’s interested in using Harlequin Core™ for their Digital Front End (DFE), there are always three technical topics under discussion: speed, quality and capabilities. Speed and quality are often very quick discussions; much of the time they’ve approached us because they’re already convinced that Harlequin can do what they need. In the remaining cases we tend to jointly agree that the best way for them to be convinced is for them to take a copy of Harlequin Core and to run their own tests. There’s nothing quite like trying something on your own systems to give yourself confidence in the results.

So that leaves capabilities.

If the company already sells a DFE using a different core RIP they will almost always want to at least match, and usually to extend, the functionality of their existing solution when they switch to Harlequin. And if they’re building their first DFE they usually have a clear idea of what their target market will need.

At that stage we start by ensuring that we all understand that Harlequin Core can deliver rasters in whatever format is required (color channels, interleaving, resolution, bit depth, halftoning) and then cover color management pretty quickly (yes, Harlequin uses ICC profiles, including v4 and DeviceLink; yes, you can chain multiple profiles in arbitrary sequences, etc).

Then we usually come on to a series of questions that boil down to handling spot colors:

Most spot separations in jobs will be emulated on my digital press; can I adjust that emulation?
Can I make sure that the emulation works well with ICC profiles for different substrates?
Can I include special device colorants, such as White and Silver inks in that emulation?
Can I alias one spot separation name to another?
Can I make technical separations, like cut and fold lines, completely disappear, without knocking out if somebody upstream didn’t set them to overprint?
Alternatively, can I extract technical separations as vector graphics to drive a cutter/plotter with?

Since the answer to all of those is ‘yes’ we can then move on to areas where the vendor is looking for a unique capability …

But I’ve always been slightly disappointed that we don’t get to talk more about some of the interesting corners of spot handling in Harlequin. So I created a video to walk through some examples. Take a look, and I’d welcome your comments and questions!

A problem solved

They say a problem shared is a problem halved. Well, two weeks on from our launch of our Advanced Inkjet Screens it’s been gratifying to see how much the discussion of inkjet output quality has resonated among the press vendor community.

Advanced Inkjet Screens are standard in the ScreenPro screening engine

Just in case you missed it, we’ve introduced a set of screens that mitigate the most common artifacts that occur in inkjet printing, particularly in single-pass inkjet but also in scanning heads. Those of you who’ve attended Martin Bailey’s presentations at the InkJet Conference ( The IJC) will know that we’ve been building up to making these screens available for some time. And we’ve worked with a range of industry partners who’ve approached us for help because they’ve struggled to resolve problems with streaking and orange peel effect on their own.

Coalescence on inkjet is directional and leads to visible streaks.

Well, now Advanced Inkjet Screens are available as standard screens that are applied by our ScreenPro screening engine. They can be used in any workflow with any RIP that allows access to unscreened raster data, so that’s any Adobe PDF RIP including Esko. Vendors can replace their existing screening engine with ScreenPro to immediately benefit from improved quality, not to mention the high data rates achievable. We’ve seen huge improvements in labels and packaging workflows. Advanced Inkjet Screens are effective with all the major inkjet printheads and combinations of electronics. They work at any device resolution with any ink technology.

Why does a halftone in software work so well? Halftones create an optical illusion depending on how you place the dots. Streaking or graining on both wettable and non-absorbent substrates can be corrected. Why does this work in software so well? Halftoning controls precisely where you place the dots. It just goes to show that the assumption that everything needs to be fixed in hardware is false. We’ve published a white paper if you’re interested in finding out more.

The Mirror screen mitigates the orange peel effect common when printing onto tin cans, plastics, or flexible packaging

November 15, 2017November 21, 2019

What do you really need in a RIP to drive a digital press in labels & packaging?

In this latest post, Global Graphics CTO Martin Bailey goes back to basics and explores what you need in a RIP to drive a digital press for labels & packaging.

Martin highlights rendering your jobs correctly, color management with CMYK inks and spot colors, PDF layering and technical separations, and provides a high-level view of the features of the Harlequin RIP® for digital labels and packaging.

Watch Martin’s presentation here:

October 11, 2017November 20, 2019

Harlequin RIP helps to drive the new HP Production Pro for Indigo Labels & Packaging

Our corporate communications director, Jill Taylor, talks to Roy Faigenbloom of HP Indigo at Labelexpo Europe last month about the new digital front end driving the HP Production Pro for Indigo labels & packaging.

HP Indigo chose the Harlequin RIP as the RIP engine in this new DFE, which has been designed to drive all HP Indigo digital labels and packaging presses and has been rated as 5x faster than the previous DFE.

May 5, 2016February 27, 2023

Fancy a test drive of the new Harlequin v11 at drupa 2016?

One of the many highlights of our drupa stand will be the new Harlequin RIP. We asked Martin Bailey, CTO at Global Graphics, to tell us more about it. He told us that there are a host of new features to improve inkjet output quality including richer, multi-level screening controls, more controls for variable data printing, and new features for labels and packaging applications. Hear his summary in this video:

Fancy a test drive? Join us at drupa 2016, Stand 70 B21/C20 in the dip. Simply contact us to book a demonstration.

Stay tuned for more announcements over the next couple of weeks.