FOVEA CONVERTS SCHOOL PORTRAIT PRODUCTION FROM SILVER HALIDE TO HP INDIGO SOLUTION

Norway-based Fovea, a market-leading school lab company, specialises in the school portrait market, serving all of Norway and Sweden. Since taking its first photographs of school children in 1966, Fovea has seen and instigated a great deal of innovation. Film photography of the children gave way to digital; and parents ordering of prints based on printed proofs was replaced by online ordering via Foveas website. Across the decades, one thing stayed static: silver halide remained the standard method for printing school portraits. Time to move on from silver halide Unsatisfied with the rising costs of photo paper, and wanting to improve its performance as an environmentally responsible company, Fovea looked for a replacement for its silver halide printers. The company also wanted to expand its capacity and reduce turnaround time from photo shoot to shipment of printed photos. On top of these goals, Foveas paramount concern was that the new solution had to match, without compromise, silver halide quality. HP Indigo press ts the bill Fovea found its solution in the HP Indigo WS6000p Digital Press a roll-to-roll press customised for simplex photo applications and fitted with inline lamination for a high-quality finish. Supporting an image format of up to 317 x 980 mm and configured for high-quality, six-colour photo printing with light cyan and light magenta photo inks, Foveas press delivers photorealistic output, with highly accurate skin tones, textures and shading. We decided to buy the HP Indigo WS6000p Digital Press for the low production costs, high capacity, fast speed and, of course, the quality, says Jan Erik Larsen, quality manager at Fovea. He adds that in practice, Fovea has accomplished all that, and more. My impression is that the machines total productivity is actually better than I expected, its going a lot faster than I thought it would. New solution takes quality up a notch Fovea CEO Morten ys adds: We feel the quality is better with the WS6000p. We get a wider colour range out of the machine, and we are getting better results with six-colour printing compared to the silver halide machines. Since installing the HP Indigo WS6000p Digital Press in its production plant near Oslo, Fovea has migrated all school portrait and group picture printing to its new press, replacing two silver halide machines. Fovea integrated the HP Indigo digital press into its existing workflow, enabling an easy transition. The photographers shoot the individual and group portraits at the schools and each evening upload the images to Foveas FTP server. The parents order the images they like via Foveas website. The next day, the images are adjusted and colour corrected and then put into production using HP SmartStream Production Pro. The portraits are printed on the HP Indigo WS6000p Digital Press, laminated inline, and then cut, packed and shipped. On average, Fovea now completes the whole process from photography to shipment in three to four days.

The new workflow is about three to four times faster than the old one, and we are saving printing time because the printing is faster, says Larsen. Overall, our productivity has increased three or four-fold. Photo look and feel Special photo-based paper from Felix Schoeller designed for use with the HP Indigo press was a major factor in Foveas decision to purchase the press. ys says: It was very important to us to avoid making any big changes with the paper because people are used to photo paper. The Felix Schoeller paper looks very much like photo paper. It is definitely more affordable than the old silver halide paper.

Signicantly lower costs of production Just six months after installation, the new press is giving Foveas bottom line a healthy boost. Our costs are approximately 60 per cent lower when producing pictures with the WS6000p, mainly as a result of the paper and the printing process itself, says ys. We have seen a huge difference between last year with the silver halide machines and this year with the HP Indigo WS6000p Digital Press. We got the pictures out much faster and money in faster, so it really helped us to get good results at the end of the year.

There are a lot of advantages to us of using the HP Indigo WS6000p Digital Press instead of our silver halide machines. We have greatly reduced costs and increased productivity, with much faster printing. We can produce pictures faster, and in a cleaner way.
Morten ys CEO, Fovea

Growth opportunities due to greater capacity and cleaner process With the HP Indigo WS6000p Digital Press, Fovea is seeing new opportunities develop, both in terms of its business and in terms of the impact of its printing on the environment. ys elaborates: When schools open for the year, everyone wants to have their pictures taken on the first or second day. Now we can print more portraits faster, we can have more photographers out in the field taking photos. Also, delivery time is very important in this business, and we now have the best delivery time in our market. The environmental theme is also very important. This is a clean machine in a business that hasnt been that clean before. Now we can tell customers that their picture is produced in a cleaner way.

AT A GLANCE Industry sector: Photo Specialty Business name: Fovea AS Headquarters: Industriveien 24
1481 Hagan
Norway
Telephone: + 47 03686 Web site: www.fovea.no

CHALLENGE Replace silver halide production of school portraits without compromising quality. Increase production capacity by 300 per cent. Reduce turnaround time to 4 days (vs. the industry standard of 2 to 3 weeks). Reduce media and consumables costs. Reduce the impact on the environment of printing photographs.

SOLUTIONS HP Indigo WS6000p Digital Press with HP SmartStream Production Pro for fast-turnaround, high-quality school photographs. HP Indigo press 5500 and HP Indigo 7500 Digital Press for specialty photo products, such as photo books, catalogues and yearbooks.

RESULTS Met the stated goals for higher capacity and faster turnaround, due to digital workflow vs. silver halide. Significantly lower production costs, due to lower-cost paper and process, and less waste. Superb print quality, with photo look and feel matching or exceeding silver halide quality, with wider colour gamut and better colour matching. Improved environmental performance by elimination of the need for plate related chemicals.

To learn more, visit www.hp.com/go/graphicarts

2012 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein. 4AA3-9274EEW, Created February 2012