For the Business of Apparel Decorating
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Graphics Hot Spot by Wayne Potter |||| Innovative Transfer Solutions The revolution of transfers for dark garments G ifted with foresight and imagination, many innovators have a clear vision of something that does Wayne Potter has more than 25 years of experience in the screen, lithonot currently exist but that can in the future. Quite graphic and gravure printing of heat transfers and industrial marking often, such visionaries are at risk of being labeled weird or devices. He is a pioneer in the area of digital heat-transfer papers. Potter kooky because it is difficult for the average individual to has spent most of his career developing new business, managing marketidentify with the ideas generated by the creative thinker. ing, in sales and writing technical trouble-shooting articles. Up through There are some of what we call early adopters, though, early 2012 he was vice president marketing development at Air Waves Inc. who grab up the fruits of the visionary's labor. Once the in Columbus, Ohio. Currently, he is senior sales executive for Joto. product catches hold and gains awareness and acceptance, it differentiates itself from other products. So, it's exciting grouping these multi-level print dots towhen you can witness, in our case, a breakthrough digital heat transfer paper technology gether enables the 711WT to achieve 256 as it makes its entrance to the market. levels of intensity rather than the 10 levels of the classic laser. All of that is to say Innovative solution that the multi-level 711WT delivers more Known only by its generic name, transfers for darks, a paper was developed for decoration tones of gray and colors. Think of it as the of dark garments using OKI Data printer technology. The paper is a cost-effective means to difference between installing a dimmer decorate dark fabrics without the polymer background so familiar to all of us. switch rather than an on/off switch for At the heart of the process is the C711WT digital color printing process pioneered by OKI your dining room light. Data. The electrophotographic printer employs a light emitting diode (LED) print head as a light source from within the imaging device. Unlike a normal lasers, the LED print head is a solid-state device that has Transfers for darks allows no moving parts. The LED print head the application of heat transbar pulse-flashes across the entire page, fers to black and dark garcreating an image on the print drum as ments without the traditional it moves. The printer has a straight-line polymer backing associated paper path that minimizes the possibiliwith the decoration. (All ty of paper jams. This LED is the future images courtesy of desktop color laser printing. the author) The OKI 1,200 dpi (dots per inch) resolution print head places a 25-micrometer print dot much smaller than the 65-micrometer size dot a normal 1,200 dpi laser printer places. This means more printer dots can be grouped together in a given area, which contributes greatly to print quality. Most laser printers group dots together in a 3" X 3" halftone cell and populate these halftone cells with dots of two different intensities. By contrast, the new 711WT print head systematically prints 16 different shades in the range between black and white. Utilizing the same 3 X 3 halftone cell as a classic laser printer, 24 | Printwear PW_OCT13.indd 24 October 2013 9/17/13 8:49 AM