EFI unveils upgraded Fiery system

As it marks the 20-year anniversary of the first Fiery digital print server, EFI has launched the next-generation Fiery platform. Named Fiery System 10, the new system delivers documents faster than ever before, along with the latest system calibration technology to guarantee color consistency at all times, tighter integration with the printer's finishing options, and greater flexibility and control. 

Toby Weiss, general manager of the Fiery business unit and senior vice president of EFI, said: ‘System 10 is the fastest, most robust ever and is poised to bring amazing results to demanding customers worldwide. Fiery technology is now the most integrated platform in the industry, with connectivity to business process automation solutions, production workflow systems, and direct mobile printing to deliver a complete solution from creation to print.’  

Fiery System 10 is said to provide advanced capabilities to customers in four key areas: color, usability, performance and integration. 

An enhancement to Fiery's color management system is the new Fiery Calibrator that is claimed to make the calibration process more effective, integrated and easier to use. The new job-based calibration increases accuracy and effectiveness because it is customized for a specific job and the associated media and profiles. Because calibration is critical and needs to be performed routinely, Fiery System 10 has incorporated a ‘Calibration Guard’ to provide calibration status, warnings and alerts to encourage calibration to take place and ensure color quality. 

The Fiery Image Enhance Visual Editor (IEVE) is a powerful feature newly available on the Command WorkStation print job management and user interface software that ships with Fiery System 10. IEVE allows editing each image in a job without going back to the native design file. IEVE simplifies the editing process, providing an interactive toolset for optimizing image appearance and applying automatic per-image corrections, to ensure photos look their best. This tool also gives users a manual control to individually adjust brightness, contrast, highlights, shadows, color balance, sharpness and to make red-eye corrections on any image within a job. 

The latest version of Command WorkStation software is claimed to be easier to use. Common tasks are more accessible and required job information more readily available to operators to increase productivity. 

In addition, a Mixed Finishing Sets feature in the SeeQuence Compose option is now available to simplify complex jobs in high-production environments. With the new Fiery Mixed Finishing Sets (and an inline finisher attached to the print engine), users can specify multiple finishing requirements among the various subsets within a single job to produce completely finished jobs, minimizing labor. 

Fiery System 10 has a number of enhanced Variable Data Print (VDP) features. Most notably, it supports PDF/VT-1, a new standard developed by ISO (International Organisation for Standardisation) for VDP data exchange. PDF/VT-1 brings the benefits of a PDF workflow to VDP, helping customers increase production efficiency with capabilities such as late stage exchange of critical variable content. By folding seamlessly into existing PDF-based pre-press operations, PDF/VT-1 enables a single, common PDF print production workflow for all job types. 

System 10 has built-in technology that enables direct mobile printing from Apple iOS devices to the Fiery-driven printer. Wi-fi enabled Apple iOS devices (such as iPhones and iPads) will automatically discover any System 10 Fiery-driven printer on the same network inside the corporate firewall. Employees can simply select a listed printer and touch ‘print’ with no need to download an app or install printer drivers. 

Besides integration with mobile devices, Fiery servers fit with EFI's portfolio of print MIS and workflow software, including PrintSmith, Pace, Radius and Monarch management systems and the EFI Digital StoreFront web-to-print platform. 

Fiery System 10 further expands its industry integration capability with Agfa Apogee Pre-press Workflow, and the upcoming release of Kodak Prinergy Workflow, to enable pre-press workflow users to submit jobs to and manage one or more Fiery-controlled digital print engines right from the same familiar user interface. These pre-press workflow integrations create a single workflow to serve blended production, reducing operational costs and boosting production performance.