In Focus Vol. 2 No. 4
Wall to Wall
Uncover new printing profit centers and create more cash flow with LexJet’s printable wallpaper, low-tack vinyl, and backlit materials. Success stories from the field using LexJet 11 Mil WallPro, 7 Mil AquaLight Backlit, and Extreme AquaVinyl.
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LexJet 11 Mil WallPro
“The best thing about my printer is that it prints money. When I say that I don't mean I'm counterfeiting money,” laughs photographer and fine-art printer Bill Barley, owner of Bill Barley & Associates in Columbia, S.C.
Barley’s shot of the Columbia skyline is the perfect illustration of this concept. A Dallas condominium developer recently commissioned Barley to reproduce his skyline photo at nine feet high and 42 feet long along the back wall of one of their demonstration units.
The purpose was to give potential residents a preview of the view they could expect from the balcony of their condos in Columbia. Barley printed the panorama on LexJet WallPro with his Epson 9600.
“I made a $6,000 print, and it went together real well,” recalls Barley. “I used the ImagePrint RIP to process the file, because the Epson driver would never let it happen, especially when you’re faced with panels that are nine feet long. The file was about 140 MB. I sliced the file into 15 sections with a pixel to pixel cut in Photoshop, and then upsized it through ImagePrint as 15 separate panels.”
Barley says he charged $4,500 for the print and $1,500 for file preparation. He hired a professional wallpaper hanger to install the project, which was charged to the customer. “It looks real nice, and the guy did such a great job of pasting it up that I couldn’t see the seams, and I knew where they were.”
“The printing was real simple, with no glitches or hassles, but you had to do it in 1440, because at 720 it got a little de-saturated and pasty looking,” says Barley. “Print time was doubled to about 30 hours, but the image quality was outstanding.”
Photographer Jack Puryear of Puryear Photography in Austin also completed a unique wallpaper project with LexJet WallPro for a children’s oncology clinic. The purpose of this project was to soften the clinical, antiseptic look of a treatment room.
“They want to make it as comfortable as possible for the children who undergo cancer treatment, and a large landscape will open the room up and make it more soothing,” explains Puryear. “I made the prints in sections, and took them to a wallpaper hanger. They were very pleased with it. The material looks very nice, and it printed really well.”
This particular treatment room at the clinic now features a view into master oil painter G. Harvey’s studio. Harvey has donated time and money to the clinic, and the photo of his studio setting brings his creative world to the treatment room.
Puryear says the clinic has tentative plans to include some of his landscape photography from peaceful settings at Texas state parks around Austin as wall treatments. The cool blues and greens of river scenes will work particularly well in that setting.
LexJet 7 Mil AquaLight Backlit
Another real estate application Barley utilized was an image printed on LexJet 7 Mil AquaLight Backlit for a sales center. Barley reports that the images have been displayed in the light boxes for almost 18 months and still look great.
“The LexJet material slipped right into the box, and there was no need to use a diffusion material or anything else. You just whack them to size and put them in the hole,” says Barley. “We used the ImagePrint profile for cool white fluorescent lighting because I knew that’s what would be behind the images.”
LexJet Extreme AquaVinyl w/ PSA
For self-promotional work, Puryear uses Water Resistant Satin Cloth for banners at shows, chamber of commerce events, and other marketing venues. He also printed and applied LexJet Extreme AquaVinyl w/ PSA to the side of a trailer he takes to racing events to promote his services at these venues.
It should be noted, however, that if you’re using Epson’s UltraChrome K3 inks its outdoor life is limited. Most companies that print vehicle graphics use solvent-based printers and laminate them to protect the image from the wear and tear of the road. Furthermore, it shouldn’t be washed. But for Puryear’s purposes, the vinyl’s perfect for a short-term promotional graphic that can be easily peeled off when the time comes to try a new image.
Extreme AquaVinyl can be used for a variety of flat surface applications, such as short-term outdoor signage, long-term indoor graphics, window graphics, special event graphics, and other flat panel advertising.
For more information about these and other products that will build business and pad your profits, contact your LexJet account specialist at (800) 453-9538. And don’t forget about LexJet technical support director Tom Hauenstein’s upcoming nationwide tour, ironically entitled Printing for Profitability in the Digital Darkroom, where Tom will not only guide you through the color management process, but will also provide a bevy of great application ideas for your printer. |
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