Customer demonstrations at Photokina
The biennial photokina show in Cologne, Germany, is the longest running and most popular worldwide photo/video event. While new camera announcements and virtual reality/augmented reality demonstrations wowed the more than 190,000 visitors, there were innovations in the photo output category, as well.
Mediaclip was there, of course, to show our latest software for creating personalized photo products. As previously mentioned, we have completely redesigned the Mediaclip™ Product Designer™ side-panel and toolbox based on recent usability testing and customer feedback. The new UI allows for easy and intuitive navigation, resulting in a speedy and delightful creation process for the end-user. The response was excellent.
Members of our team also took part of the Photokina HP Global Photo Summit Event held on Sept. 21, where we showed the integration of our hosted solution, Mediaclip Hub, to the HP PrintOs environment.
We know there is still great potential for the output business; in a recent article in Digital Imaging Reporter, industry experts Don Franz and Elmo Sapwater “project the U.S. market for photo books, calendars, greeting cards, mugs, posters/collages and canvas/metal prints will rise from $5.8 billion in 2016 to $6.6 billion in 2018. Taking into consideration that prices are declining, that represents a significant growth.”
This growth is being driven not only by software innovations, like those from Mediaclip, but also the preponderance of mobile smartphone cameras and high-quality digital printing systems. At photokina, three major companies showed new printing innovations: Epson, Fujifilm and Noritsu.
Epson showed a wide variety of printing systems, ranging from small inkjet systems right up to high-volume systems with 12-inch paper, suited for smartphone panorama prints. To promote the concepts of printing on any object, Epson demonstrated a variety of highly creative applications. Images were printed onto T-shirts using the SureColor SC-F2000 direct-to-textile printer, while photo printing onto 3D products — including helmets, accessories, phone/tablet cases and promo products —were shown using the SureColor SC-F6200 printer and in partnership with 3D sublimation experts SubliTec. Epson also showed partner photo printing onto metal panels.
Fujifilm showed a number of inkjet solutions; the newest one was the Frontier DE100, compact, lightweight, and high-performance printer offering high-speed imaging in various print sizes and paper surfaces. This versatile printer demonstrates the wide variety of options and potential for photo output in a wide array of applications, from square prints to banners, in a very small space.
Noritsu exhibited a high-performance 640dpi traditional silver-halide output printer, QSS-3801G, capable of nearly 1,500 46 prints per hour. Noritsu also showed QSS Smart DR 8 and DR 12 inkjet paper printers, for reaching new non-traditional markets, like print-shop providers and event photographers.
Once again, photokina brought the worldwide photo industry to Europe. If you weren’t able to join us, and would like a demo of about Mediaclip’s photo personalization solutions to see the tools in action, please contact us at marketing@mediaclip.ca or take a look at this short video.
