Ground-Breaking Lenticular Flexographic Printing System Revealed At Pack Expo

New technology enables cost-effective lenticular flexographic printing. Packaging and label markets poised to capitalize on attention-grabbing images.

Chicago, IL (PRWEB) November 10, 2008 -- While printing lenticular effects on flexographic presses has been attempted before, issues around print resolution, dot size, and press registration have prevented its success. The introduction of higher resolution imaging devices like the KODAK FLEXCEL NX System, combined with interlacing technology from Pixalen Studio and rolled lens stock from Pacur, has now made lenticular flexographic printing a reality.

Using KODAK FLEXCEL NX Digital Flexographic System from Kodak's Graphics Communications Group (GCG) (Booth E-5752), Pixalen Studio a lenticular prepress service and lenticular lens extruder Pacur have developed a system for lenticular flexographic printing.

"The award winning KODAK FLEXCEL NX Digital Flexographic System enables a wide variety of applications, and the lenticular printing is another great example of its versatility," said John Anderson, Flexo Plate Product Manager, Americas, Kodak's GCG. "Once again Kodak is raising the bar of flexo printing by bringing the unique benefits of lenticular printing to the highly competitive packaging market at an affordable price. With KODAK SQUARESPOT Imaging Technology, the FLEXCEL NX System delivers extremely high quality and consistency on almost any material, including lenticular."

"The FLEXCEL NX System is amazing. The dot size is so precise--it really works well with lenticular", remarked Tim Goggins, Director of Pixalen Studio. "We've combined it with our Chromalen technology on three different flexographic presses, and we've had three successes."

The Chromalen technology developed by Pixalen Studio is the keystone. Chromalen eliminates the registration problems of conventional lenticular flexographic printing while simultaneously eliminating "refresh" or "parallax shift" in 3-D images. The result is a very clean image with seamless depth.

Pixalen Studio has been conducting testing over the past weeks, aiming to perfect the process. "We are very excited about the progress and hope to explore more possibilities in the coming months," stated Goggins.

Pacur, the world's largest extruder of lenticular material has developed a new rolled lenticular stock specifically for the flexographic market. "This is a very exciting development that could really change how we look at lenticular packaging", said Bruce Hammerbeck, Vice President of Marketing for Pacur. "This should create more opportunities for lenticular within the packaging market, because it's much more cost-effective to print rolled flexographic lenticular for labels, than to convert sheet lenticular to rolls."

About Pixalen Studio
Pixalen Studio offers lenticular prepress services to the print industry, including creative design, art production, 2-D to 3-D conversion, interlacing, training, and proofing. Along with the service business, Pixalen is also pioneering new processes, including Chromalen technology, for the flexographic market. For more information about Pixalen Studio, visit www.pixalenstudio.com

About Kodak
As the world's foremost imaging innovator, Kodak helps consumers, businesses, and creative professionals unleash the power of pictures and printing to enrich their lives. For more information about Kodak's Graphic Communications Group, visit www.graphics.kodak.com. For downloading photos and videos from Kodak's image library, visit: http://graphics.kodak.com/gcgimages.

About Pacur
Pacur is an ISO 9001:2000-certified custom sheet extruder located in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Pacur specializes in the extrusion of light- and heavy-gauge polyester, copolyester, and polypropylene resins for a variety of medical, graphic, and other high-end printing and thermoforming applications. For more information about Pacur, visit www.pacur.com

About LENSTAR.org
LENSTAR.org is a lenticular organization, dedicated as an innovative lenticular resource that helps advertisers, designers, and their clients research and learn more about the lenticular process. For more information about lenticular, visit www.lenstar.org.

Lenticular flexographic samples will be on display at the Kodak booth number E-5752.
Also available at www.lenstar.org/flexo

Chromalen is trademark of Pixalen Studio. Kodak and Flexcel are trademarks of Kodak.

Kodak’s ONE Magazine Captures League of American Communications Professionals Gold Award

ROCHESTER, N.Y., Nov. 11, 2008 — Each year, the League of American Communications Professionals (LACP) stages its Spotlight Awards, which honor print, video and web communications across a broad range of industries and organizational sizes. The 2008 Spotlight Awards drew more than 1,250 entries representing upwards of 10 countries, and materials were judged in peer level competitions. In recognition of outstanding achievement in the category of Print: Magazine/Newsletter for companies with more than $1 billion in revenue, Kodak’s Graphic Communications Group (GCG) received a Gold award for its ONE magazine.

This is the third year in a row that ONE magazine has won a Gold award in an LACP competition. Distributed to Kodak’s GCG customers around the world, ONE magazine offers a mix of content and insight on the prominent opportunities across the graphic arts market. ONE magazine’s mission is to give each of Kodak’s GCG customers a tool for expanding their businesses and maximizing their investments.

“ONE magazine is an important part of our strategy to provide resources that help our customers grow and succeed,” said Kevin Joyce, Chief Marketing Officer, Kodak’s Graphic Communications Group. “It’s an honor to be recognized for a third time by such a prominent group for our commitment to communicating with and educating our customers.”

ONE magazine received an overall score of 97 out of 100 in its category and was ranked #35 in the Top 100 entries across all Spotlight categories. Judges in the competition are communications professionals affiliated with LACP, and their expertise spans a broad spectrum of PR functions ranging from corporate, executive and internal communications for Fortune 500 organizations to product, service and nonprofit publicity expertise.

The magazine name, ONE, reflects Kodak’s commitment to partnering with each customer on growing their business. Feature articles, columns, case studies, and product profiles in ONE focus on challenges that printers face and the strategies they are using to win in their marketplaces. The October 2008 issue of ONE was just released. More information is available at http://graphics.kodak.com/US/One_magazine/default.htm.

LACP was established in 2001 to create a forum within the public relations industry that facilitates discussion of best in class practices within the profession while also recognizing those who demonstrate exemplary communications capabilities. Quarterly competitions such as the Spotlight Awards recognize achievement across a range of public relations disciplines.        

About Kodak
As the world's foremost imaging innovator, Kodak helps consumers, businesses, and creative professionals unleash the power of pictures and printing to enrich their lives. To learn more, visit www.kodak.com, and our blogs: 1000words.kodak.com, PluggedIn.kodak.com, and GrowYourBiz.kodak.com.