Label World Installs EskoArtwork Prepress System

Vandalia, Ohio—Rochester, NY-based Label World, a supplier of custom labels in the Northeast, is reporting improved productivity and higher quality flexo printing due to its recent implementation of an EskoArtwork Software workflow solution and a Cyrel Digital Imager (CDI) 2530 flexo platemaker.

For more than 20 years, Label World has provided quality custom labels, enhanced by value-added services, to meet its customers’ product branding, identification, tracking, and security needs. Its 50 employees work with a variety of flexo presses and one HP Indigo ws4050 digital press.

Until recently, Label World had used an analog, film-based plate system, burning flexo plates and working with prepress tools featuring Adobe Illustrator. “We were limited to a coarser line screen and larger minimum dot size on press,” said John McDermott, Label World president and CEO. “We wanted to improve the quality of the color work we were able to produce, so we could go after higher value-added opportunities. We also wanted more consistency on color output.”

Label World also sought to improve productivity in prepress. Film-based equipment was becoming harder to maintain over time and it wanted to make the process of trapping, distortions, and other prepress actions easier and more productive to do.

“Clearly, the workflow at the front end had to align with both the flexo and digital businesses—all roll fed. Pitman [Company] helped spec out a complete EskoArtwork system,” explains McDermott. “EskoArtwork has a workflow well suited to label business and, in particular, roll fed. The EskoArtwork system is a proven solution that has all the features we needed in terms of productivity of prepress, as well as the ability to connect to a CDI 2530 digital plate system.” The software includes Equinox for color management, DeskPack plug-ins for Adobe Illustrator (for trapping, bar codes, preflighting, and step and repeat), and FlexRip and FlexProof/E to RIP files to proofers, the Indigo digital press, and the platemaker. Label World also installed a CDI 2530 flexo plate imager.

With the new prepress system, Label World reports being able to consistently match color expectations between their Epson proof and the flexo press, as well as their Indigo press. By adding an Epson Stylus Pro 4880 inkjet printer along with EskoArtwork FlexRip and Equinox, proofs are much easier and faster to create with no sacrifice in color accuracy. The company is also using Equinox to manage the differences between digital and flexo colors. Although Label World is not moving jobs very often between platforms, every job still has to provide accurate colors for consistent branding between printing projects.

With the new EskoArtwork system, Label World was able to upgrade to 150 lpi from 133 lpi work, as well as upgrading the anilox rollers and inks it uses. It reports doing more complex work four-color work, with the ability to produce vignettes much better and significantly better highlights.

Label World has reduced the time for platemaking by more than 50 percent, from 2 to 2.5 hours per plate to less than one hour. This has led to an increase in productivity, because the presses don’t have to wait for plates.