Quality of Digital Printing

So you want one guys opinion on color digital printing quality? Here it is.

If you are a mom and pop color copiers are an option although you don't pay much more for much better quality. Toner based machines no matter how much they cost are still toner particles. Nexpress & IGen3 do a very good job but will still show their toner ancestry on many jobs.
These 2 machines will be very consistent on color from print to print.

The liquid ink possibilities include the DI(Direct Imaging) offset presses and the Indigo digital press family. The DI options are Heidelberg and Ryobi DI machines. These machines can't do variable data and have a limited ink carrying capacity so can show more issues like ghosting and gradation problems.

They also will depend more on the skill of the pressperson for print to print consistency. The DI can print spot colors and uses temporary plates to produce each job.

The Indigo 3050 digital press has liquid ink technology and rivals offset printing in quality. It can do variable data printing and true spot PMS colors and will be very consistent from print to print. All in all if you want my vote for the best machine it would be the HP 3050 digital press because of the availability of doing variable data printing and quality rivaling offset.

It will be very consistent from print to print and can do spot PMS colors for branding or better color matching. It also doesn't have that color copy ancestry look and will print screens and solids in a close to offset printing look.