With the Apogee Suite of workflow management products, Agfa Graphics offers commercial printers a comprehensive solution to control all production output from one user interface. The latest version of this workflow software – Apogee 10 – now brings extra features, significant quality improvements, and performance enhancements. 

With a wider range of features, improved performance, and a unique cloud-based alternative, Apogee 10 expands on its basic pilars – innovation, interaction, and optimization.

Apogee 10’s new user interface for unbound work enables printers to make optimum use of press sheets and press time. Optimization is possible for both regularly and irregularly shaped print products and takes into account the required run length. In addition, the latest Apogee software version supports new digital print engines (i.e. Canon B4000 and Canon B5000) and the new Agfa Graphics Avalon N8-90 CtP.

“One of the most important features of Apogee 10, however, is its rejuvenated Digital Quick Strip (DQS) mechanism”, says Andy Grant, Head of Software, Agfa Graphics. “By processing pages separately before integrating them into a placeholder, Apogee and DQS turn page revision into a swift and simple task. And the same goes for updating the press sheet layout due to last-minute job rescheduling. Thanks to DQS, printers’ throughput is higher and output resources are utilized in the best way possible.”

Quality improvements 

Among the improvements in Apogee 10 are enhanced versioning support and the integration of Agfa Graphics’ IntelliTune technology for automatic image correction and image quality improvement.

“Apogee 10 allows printers to set up a versioning job based on spot color input files”, Grant explained. “They can also merge different parts of a versioning job onto one single plate to optimize press efficiency. All Apogee improvements aim to meet the ever-growing automation and performance needs of professional printers.”

Apogee WebApproval

The web-based file upload and page approval portal that is integrated in Apogee 10 now shows preflight notifications, page bleed and trim sizes to the connected print buyers, so that potential issues are discovered early in the production process and costly mistakes can be avoided. Expert users can even preview separations online to check if black text is set to overprint or a logo appears on the correct spot color plate. They can even validate complex versioning jobs from within their browser. It all contributes to WebApproval as a powerful online collaboration tool, which strengthens the relationship between the printer and their customers.

Apogee 10 offers printers a smooth production workflow, which is essential in hybrid environments with connections to prepress for plates and to a variety of other digital front-ends (DFE) like e.g. Ricoh TotalFlow Print Server. Such integration avoids operator intervention because specific production parameters such as media or finishing are defined in Apogee and executed automatically by Ricoh TotalFlow Print Server.

Apogee also directly links to wide-format devices such as Jeti Tauro, Jeti Mira and the Anapurna family and a range of non-Agfa wide-format engines. This unique hybrid production hub saves print service providers valuable time and centralizes all prepress tasks.

Apogee10 relies on the latest Adobe PDF Print Engine software.

“Adobe has had a long and successful relationship with Agfa, who pioneered PDF workflow for print production,” says Mark Lewiecki, Adobe Senior Product Manager. “Agfa continues to lead the industry with software and hardware innovation. Agfa customers are reaping the rewards with Apogee and Asanti workflow solutions, which harness the power of the Adobe PDF Print Engine.” 

Apogee Cloud

In addition to its new features and performance improvements, Apogee 10 is also available as a cloud-based solution.

“With Apogee Cloud, we offer printers the same Apogee products and features, only they are hosted by Agfa’s private and secure cloud”, said Grant. “That is a unique service and it comes with many more advantages. There is no need, for example, to provide any local configuration, software installations or hardware expertise. Printers can just leave that up to our Apogee experts and ICT specialists.” 

Apogee 10 and all other software solutions from Agfa Graphics will be demonstrated live at drupa2016 Hall 8 under the software cloud.