An Iris printer is a large-format color

inkjet printer Inkjet printing is a type of printer (computing), computer printing that recreates a digital image by propelling droplets of ink onto paper or plastic substrates. Inkjet printers were the most commonly used type of printer in 2008, and range f ...

designed for

prepress proofing A contract proof usually serves as an agreement between customer and printer (publishing), printer and as a color reference guide for adjusting the press (machine), press before the final press run. Most contract proofs are a prepress proof. The ...

. It was introduced in 1985 by Iris Graphics, originally of

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, and is currently manufactured by the Graphic Communications Group of

Eastman Kodak The Eastman Kodak Company, referred to simply as Kodak (), is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic basis in film photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorporated i ...

. It is also used in the fine art reproduction market as a final output

digital printing Digital printing is a method of printing from a Digital data, digital-based image directly to a variety of media. It usually refers to professional printing where small-run jobs from desktop publishing and other digital sources are printed usi ...

press, as in Giclée. Prints produced by an Iris printer are commonly called Iris prints, Iris proofs or simply Irises.

History

The Iris printer was developed by Iris Graphics, Inc. originally of

. Iris was founded in 1984 by two former employees of Applicon, Inc., Dieter Jochimsen and Craig Surprise, who had worked with Professor Helmuth Hertz of Lund University in Sweden, from whom Applicon had licensed the continuous-flow inkjet technology used in an Applicon-manufactured large-format printer. Jochimsen and Surprise were joined in founding Iris by John Oberteuffer and Richard Santos after being introduced by the U.S. licensing agent for Professor Hertz' inkjet patents, Arthur D. Little of Lexington, Massachusetts. The Iris model 2044 large-format printer, capable of printing on paper up to 34" × 44" (864 × 1118 mm), was first shipped in 1985. A smaller model, 3024, which supported automatic handling of 11" × 17" (279 × 432 mm) paper, was introduced at the September 1987 "Lasers in Graphics" show in

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. The company was acquired by Scitex in 1990, which was then purchased by Creo Products Inc. in 2000. In 2005, Creo was purchased by Kodak. The Iris product line evolved into the Veris printer line.

Design

The Iris printer is an inkjet printer designed to interface with digital

prepress Prepress is the term used in the printing and publishing industries for the processes and procedures that occur between the creation of a print layout and the final printing. The prepress process includes the preparation of artwork for press, media ...

systems to produce a hard copy that shows what the exact image will look like before the job goes to press. Such prepress output devices are used to check the image and for critical color match on industrial printing jobs such as commercial product packaging and magazine layout. Their output is also used to check color after

mass production Mass production, also known as mass production, series production, series manufacture, or continuous production, is the production of substantial amounts of standardized products in a constant flow, including and especially on assembly lines ...

begins. Iris printers use a continuous flow ink system to produce continuous-tone dot free output. The paper used in the machine is mounted on a drum rotating at 150 inches per second. Unlike most ink jet printers which fire drops only when needed, the IRIS printer's four 1-micrometer glass jets operate continuously under high pressure, vibrated by a

piezoelectric Piezoelectricity (, ) is the electric charge that accumulates in certain solid materials—such as crystals, certain ceramics, and biological matter such as bone, DNA, and various proteins—in response to applied stress (mechanics), mechanical s ...

crystal to produce drops at a 1 MHz rate. The droplets are given an electric charge so that the ones that are not needed to form the image are deflected electrostatically into a waste system.

Use in fine art reproductions

Iris printers have also been used since the late 1980s as final output digital printing devices in the production of fine art reproductions on various media, including paper, canvas, silk, linen and other textiles. There were many printers, photographers, artists, and engineers who saw the merit in using this industrial proof printer as a way to produce high-resolution color accurate reproductions. Color engineer David Coons used the 3024 at the

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to print images from Disney's new computer 3D animation system. He also wrote software to print works created on

desktop computer A desktop computer, often abbreviated as desktop, is a personal computer designed for regular use at a stationary location on or near a desk (as opposed to a portable computer) due to its size and power requirements. The most common configuratio ...

s such as

Sally Larsen Sally Larsen (born 1954) is an American artist and photographer. Early life Larsen was born in 1954 in of mixed Apache and Aleut people, Aleut descent. Career Larsen exhibits photographs, videos and paintings in San Francisco, New York City, Lo ...

1989 ''Transformer'' series, and a 1990 photo exhibition for

Graham Nash Graham William Nash (born 2 February 1942) is a British and American musician, singer and songwriter. He is known for his light tenor voice and for his contributions as a member of the Hollies and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Crosby, Stills ...

of Crosby, Stills, and Nash. Nash was so impressed with the quality of the Iris prints, he purchased his own Iris Graphics 3047 ink-jet printer for $126,000 to print further editions of his work and eventually set up Nash Editions, a digital reproduction company based on the Iris printer. There were many problems with adapting the Iris printer to fine art printing including modifying the machines to take heavy paper stock and dealing with the poorly fade-resistant (

fugitive A fugitive or runaway is a person who is fleeing from custody, whether it be from jail, a government arrest, government or non-government questioning, vigilante violence, or outraged private individuals. A fugitive from justice, also known ...

) nature of the inks. Because of the Iris printer's connection to digital, ink-jet industrial and home/office printing, one of the print makers at Nash Editions, Jack Duganne, thought such terms might have bad connotations in the art world. He came up with a

neologism In linguistics, a neologism (; also known as a coinage) is any newly formed word, term, or phrase that has achieved popular or institutional recognition and is becoming accepted into mainstream language. Most definitively, a word can be considered ...

for the process, the coined name " giclée". Similarly, Nash and Mac Holbert, manager of Nash Editions, came up with the name "digigraph" for this type of print. In the 2010s the Iris printer was for the most part superseded in the fine art printing business by Epson and other large-format printers that are much cheaper than the Iris and use inks designed to be archival.

Notes

References

Wired.com - The New Remasters

History

Design

Use in fine art reproductions

Notes

References

Further reading