september 2018 evaluation of print quality & color gamut konica...

Print Samples to document printer quality

Konica Minolta AccurioPress C2070I

Evaluation of Print Quality & Color Gamut

Konica Minolta AccurioPress C2070

Preview for Sign Istanbul 2018

September 2018

Dr. Nicholas Hellmuth


Konica Minolta AccurioPress C2070II

The FLAAR team travels several times a year to attend major print tradeshows around the world. And while we find value in all of them, Sign Istanbul is different because it is one the few expos that encompass several printing technologies: wide-format inkjet, 3D, and toner (plus textile printers, traditional signage, cutters, laminators and a diverse range for visual com-munications in the modern world).

Sign Istanbul is a great place to find a wide array of brands in the short-run digital press segment.

We have noticed more toner printers and short-run digital presses at Sign Istanbul each year than at most other expos around the world. Most sign expos have only wide-format inkjet; so most sign expos lack toner printers for A3 and A4 sizes (and others) and for printing enve-lopes or brochures to entire books.

Most companies in the graphics industry hire Public Relations agencies to help them increase brand awareness, manage their reputation and ultimately increase sales. These types of agen-cies are certainly needed to help people discov-er new products and learn about upgrades.

The downside of the PR publication is that it is written precisely to highlight the pros of a machine, in the best of the cases, or make-up the average capabilities, which is the most common practice. PR agencies are paid to write comments that is provided by the manufacturer.

But, because the savvy customer is preferring useful and unbiased information before making a purchase decision, FLAAR Reports are read by thousands of print shop owners, managers and people in the industry in general.

Our publications highlight the reality of a machine. In addition, we share comments on the status of the industry and the trends we spot at every tradeshow, factory and print shop we visit around the world.

We are able to produce unbiased content because this is the preference of Dr Nicholas and the FLAAR Reports team. We have spon-sorship agreements with a number of brands that allow us to do what we do best: research.

We thank Konica Minolta and its nice staff for providing access to the Konica Minolta Accu-rioPress C2070 to document the print quality of this machine.

Because FLAAR Reports has an education branch, the print samples we use to evaluate a printer, are not thrown away; we keep them and fly them back to Guatemala, Central Amer-ica, (where our office is located), to donate it to schools in remote rural areas, that would other-wise not have access to this type of high-quali-ty, full-color educational material.

Print Samplesto allow determining print quality and document printer qualityKonica Minolta AccurioPress C2070



Konica MinoltaBecause we have been in the print industry for more than twenty years, Konica Minolta comes to our minds as a trusted brand, known worldwide. In addition to toner printers Konica Minolta also makes printheads for wide-format inkjet printers. Indeed, Konica Minolta is one of the most popular brands of printhead technology, and ranked among the top 5 most used printhead brands in the most recent APPPEXPO Shanghai tradeshows.

However, this company goes beyond printing technology. It has solutions for workflow auto-mation, IT services, information management. In the Health industry, it manufactures X-ray and ultrasound imaging systems, among others. Konica Minolta also has an interesting division of measuring instruments like luminance meters, colorimeters, spectrophotometers, etc.

So you can see Konica Minolta has established its range of products in several industries.



The colors of the Scarlet Macaws are bright and happy. These were printed by the Konica Minolta AccurioPress C2070.

The Konica Minolta AccurioPress C2070 is a short-run digital press capable of printing up to 70 full color pages per minute, and accepts paper sizes up to 13” x 19.2” (and equivalent in metric sizes).

The AccurioPress prints 240 square images per minute. As far as the resolution, it offers 1200 x 1200 DPI. An inter-esting aspect of this printer is that you can choose the print control software among Konica Minolta, EFI Fiery and Creo.

So, if you have an EFI VUTEk printer, your workflow can be synchronized to the software level.



I sincerely appreciate the printing capabilities of Ilhan Belli, KONICA MINOLTA Turkey for helping print during Sign Istanbul 2016 and again in 2017. We also appreciate the hospitality of the personnel in the booth of Konica Minolta.

Here are samples of three different books. By taking them to a cutter, each ”print” is cut into two separate complete books.



After they are printed we take them to a cutter (in another booth) and have them cut into two A5 books.

The AccurioPress C2070 has an automatic density adjustment system and real-time engine calibration, which means every copy will have a color consistency that matches the original file.

Another interesting aspect is a scanning system that measures both CMYK and RGB to ensure color accuracy.



This is the KAYM 115 PLS 1 cutting system, which cut several copies of our booklets in less than two minutes.

We have a separate FLAAR Report on the cutting machine, but here quickly you can see that the final books are A5 in size.



We thank the KAYM sales staff and operator for their support at Sign Istanbul.

Here the operator is align-ing the prints, a step that takes only seconds.



We tested several digital presses, but the red and magenta tones produced by the Konica Minolta AccurioPress C2070 were outstanding.

Although the firmware of most short-run digital presses can take one of our A5 books and lay two of them out onto A3 format, we found that this took too long and that some booths did not have that software on their computers.

So I asked our graphic designers to prepare the A5 books onto A3 format so the printer could handle them more easily. So you see the book carefully repeated above and below.



Having the adequate equipment will streamline your workflow.



As mentioned before, cutting the prints took no more than two minutes.



Back in our office, we were able to pho-

tograph several of the finished booklets before taking them to

the schools in the rural areas in Guatemala.



This educational mate-rial is contextualized

with local flora and fauna to facilitate the

eduactional process by using elements familiar

to the kids.



The printed samples are brought back to Guatemala, and the MayanToons team organizes trips to remote areas far from the cities, to donate this samples to public schools.

Many of the kids in those schools had never had access to high-quality full-color edu-cational material. Especially not in their native language. This initiative promotes inter-est in the kids to minimize school dropout rates.

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Melanny Quiñonez is one of the illustrators that work in the MayanToons division.

september 2018 evaluation of print quality & color gamut konica...

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