From the man that brought you the Indigo press, Ben Landa and his team put together quite a theatrical performance to introduce what he touted as the 'future' of digital printing in Drupa 2012. The Landa Nano printers. Many comparisons to inkjet printing was made, with astonishing graphic animations.
What are your thoughts on this new process, and is it feasible for it to be ported over to the relatively small printers that we use for making fine art prints?
I think that the ability for the ink to bond at a particle level to the surface and texture of any substrate will allow for outstanding visual quality. The incredible fidelity of the dot formation with clean edges is another winner. It is possible that the appearance of an inked surface will be purer because of reduced light dispersion from larger and more irregular color pigment particles. Lots of 'clean' and 'green' speak were mentioned as well. Shipping dehydrated ink would save on shipping, and the consumer will be able to control and provide his own water supply, whist the printer hydrates the ink automatically. The ink cartridges would be as recyclable as plastic soda bottles.
A potential shortcoming I note is that the special 'transfer' blanket that requires heating, which consumes energy and necessitates a warm up period, especially so for low volume users. The current crop of inkjet printers in the fine art category do not require this. Landa also mentions that there are several quality issues to fix before the printers hit the market at the end of 2013. An interesting thought is that 3 other printing companies (including Heidelberg) are backing this new technology, with potentially almost every other major manufacturer of commercial printers to follow.
See the entire presentation by Landa
here on youtube.