EFI Reggiani’s breakthrough technology for digital textile printing

Electronics For Imaging Inc. brought its newest innovations in the company’s portfolio for digital textile production to ITMA Asia. The company exhibited an advanced ecosystem of technology including breakthrough EFI Reggiani COLORS, a digital textile printer offering high-end production in up to 12 colours; the EFI Reggiani TERRA solution featuring new pigment ink with binder for a greener, faster and competitive textile process; EFI Optitex 2D/3D CAD design software; and the EFI Fiery DesignPro software suite for print preparation and production. With these products, designers, brands and manufacturers alike benefit from the ability to speed time to market and deliver stunning, digitally printed apparel, home textiles and more.

EFI ecosystem of textile technologies leverages EFI Reggiani’s 70 years as a leader in textile innovation with digital and conventional processes. EFI Reggiani products, along with some of the industry’s most advanced software innovations, simplify the transition from conventional to digital production. EFI experts highlighted the company’s completely renewed digital printer line, including products that give users improved production workflows and the ability to move to greener, more environmentally-friendly processes.

Reggiani COLORS printer – EFI’s fourth high-tech industrial textile printer launched in less than one year of focused, innovative development – offers a unique imaging configuration that is especially important for customers seeking to establish a distinct competitive advantage. The printer runs at speeds up to 560 sqm per hour, delivering unmatched printing quality and uniformity with extended colour gamut, superior colour depth and increased penetration into fabric.

Users can place printer’s 12 colours in a high-productivity 6+6 configuration for superior imaging at much faster throughput speeds. An innovative continuous ink recirculation system ensures outstanding reliability and lets users print with a wider variety of inks while reducing purging and maintenance. Plus, proprietary electronics on the printer reduce setup time and streamline maintenance tasks. New EFI Reggiani printing software on the COLORS model allows for real-time image processing, which improves users’ overall workflow performance. The printer, which is available in 180-, 240- and 340-mm widths, can also use nearly any configuration of inks – including special inks, inks with different chemistry types, and special treatments.

EFI also presented Reggiani TERRA solution for direct-to-textile production. EFI Reggiani TERRA eliminates the need for steaming or washing on direct-to-textile applications using a greener, more-efficient polymerisation process that takes place as printed textile goes through the printer’s onboard dryer. The EFI Reggiani TERRA range of printer solutions merge unparalleled reliability coming from decades of experience in textile digital printing with cutting-edge innovations of a new pigment with binder offering. Users can achieve superior results – including excellent wet and dry fastness, intense colours and fine detail reproduction – while using less time, water and energy.

“We have expanded our role as a trusted advisor to help customers deliver better productivity and profitability in digital textile applications with several new EFI Reggiani printer launches in the past year, including our FLEXY and VOGUE printers,” said EFI Reggiani Vice President and General Manager Adele Genoni. “Products on display at ITMA Asia, such as our top-of-the-line Reggiani COLORS printer and our new TERRA solution, mean our customers gain new competitive strengths from one of the industry’s most complete portfolios of leading digital design, preparation and production technologies.”

The new version of EFI Optitex software on display, O/18, delivers a faster, more customisable, user-friendly experience, saving time and resources with a faster time to market. It includes an all-in-one avatar solution that allows users to customise avatars, adjust morphs, create sizes and define poses to visualise a final draped result and enable accurate fit.

The software also provides more than 100 types of pre-defined fabrics to choose from. Users can now visualise their designs before creating physical samples in a better, more realistic digital environment. And, a new EFI Optitex Marker Creation Wizard enables users to create and define multiple markers within a single, user-friendly interface.

The new version 4 of EFI’s Fiery DesignPro software suite includes new and updated plug-ins that significantly reduce the time and effort needed to create repeat patterns and sophisticated colourways directly within Adobe Photoshop. The new tools now also offer multi-channel separations with more colour depth, eliminating the need to reduce designs to indexed colours. Users also gain superior fidelity with smoother transitions and gradients and optimum colour results, especially for digitally-printed textiles.

Exclusive bi-directional integration between Fiery DesignPro and Fiery digital front ends (DFEs) for textile applications provides a seamless handshake between design and production. All production and sampling print queues are at designers’ fingertips, allowing direct submission of print-ready data from Illustrator or Photoshop to the Fiery DFE without flattening, exporting or cumbersome hot folder management.

EFI is a leading worldwide transformation from analogue to digital imaging. We are passionate about fuelling customer success with products that increase competitiveness and boost productivity. To do that, we develop breakthrough technologies for the manufacturing of signage, packaging, textiles, ceramic tiles, and personalised documents, with a wide range of printers, inks, digital front ends, and comprehensive business and production workflow suite that transforms and streamlines the entire production process.