“There are people who want to pay Rs 20 for a page in a digitally printed photo album, and there are people who want exclusivity and would pay Rs 100 for each page of a photo lithographic print from a inkjet printer in their wedding album,” says Wilson of Edathadan Digital who offers both solutions at his high-end print shop for photo albums. A 100-page wedding photo album printed on the Canon DreamLabo 5000 could set you back by Rs 10,000 or more depending on the substrate, but customers are ready to order not one or two, but half a dozen for their near and dear relatives. The appetite for the big fat Indian wedding album is growing and people want to record events in exclusive print formats in spite of endlessly recording videos of such events.
Canon entered the high-endwedding album market in December 2013 with an installation of the DreamLabo 5000 at GK Vale Bengaluru. Six monthslater itinstalled its second press at Edathadan Digital, a high-end digital printer at Angamaly a few miles away from Kochi — the business hub of Kerala. Edathadan’s Wilson who has been in the photo album business with silver halide printing for 25 years,firstinstalled an Indigo 5500 in 2010 and installed a second Indigo, a 7600 in 2013 which gives him the capacity to print 3,000 photo albums a month. “A few years back we used to print 1,50,000 12 x 18- inch sheets each month but competition has increased and volumes have dropped now,” says Wilson who decided to compensate the volume losswith better value addition.
Both high-end and mid segment
Wilson adds, “With the DreamLabo we are currently producing 500 albums each month of higher value, but we expect volumesto also pick up in times to come.” The Canon inkjet is a slow speed machine but has excellent high definition image reproduction with a 7-color dye-based ink system that merges seamlessly with the photographic substrate eliminating the need for lamination. It uses the basic CMYK along with photo cyan, photo magenta and gray and offers a print resolution of 2400 dpi. “There is a huge difference in print quality and the inkjet is clearly ahead offering higher value addition though the Capex cost of both the Indigo and Canon machine is identical,” says Wilson.
In the latter part of 2014, Canon launched three high-speed mid-range presses, after a gap of several years that are aimed at the competitively priced high volume mid segment commercial print shops. The 70 ppm C700 image press and the 80 ppm C 800 image presses were first launched in September 2014 and the 60 ppm C600 image press was showcased a month later. Whereasthe DreamLabo is targeted towards the high-end, the three C800 series solutions are targeted at the high volume GCP mid segment where Canon has significant market presence.
