Geskus Photography Wins New Business by Upgrading to the HP Indigo 7600 Digital Press

Following in his father’s footsteps, Ed Geskus has spent his career providing top-quality photographs, capturing everything from weddings to family portraits. After trying school portraits more than 20 years ago, Geskus fell in love with that niche of photography, leading him to start Geskus Photography. Today, he and his staff travel to schools around Michigan, taking school portrait photos.

For years, Geskus Photography developed its portraits using the silver halide process, but the company realized it could improve its offerings by moving to digital technology. “As the cost of silver halide continued to go up, the whole industry was starting to change to digital portrait printing,” says Geskus.

Cost benefits aside, Geskus knew digital could offer high-quality photo prints and improved production efficiency while reducing the environmental impact of his business. After a thorough search, Geskus Photography found the right fit in the HP Indigo 7600 Digital Press. “Our experience has been so smooth with the HP Indigo,” says Geskus. “It helped us deliver superior color quality and consistency, reduce environmental waste, lower labor costs, and boost production efficiency.”

With silver halide, Geskus noticed that the color consistency and quality would change during the course of the day or during a print run. Using the HP Indigo 7600 Digital Press (Booth 1241), the company now counts on consistent colors and quality—both vital elements of a portrait.

Enabled by HP Indigo’s liquid ElectroInk technology and a unique digital offset process, the HP Indigo 7600 Digital Press produces photos that match or even exceed the quality of silver halide. HP ElectroInk has the widest digital color gamut, including special effect inks, using up to seven ink stations on press. With HP Photo Inks, including light cyan and light magenta, Geskus Photography can bring out realistic skin and sky tones for professional photographic printing.

By offering vivid photos and faster turnaround times, Geskus Photography has added more customers—improving business significantly. “We have more hours in the day to print photos because our technology is now more efficient—enabling us to add more and more accounts,” Geskus says.

The impact of faster production speeds delivered by the HP Indigo 7600 Digital Press has helped the company become efficient in more ways than one. “The HP Indigo 7600 Digital Press has improved our efficiency considerably,” Geskus says. “We used to run our four silver halide machines 10 to 14 hours a day, and now we’re doing the same amount of work with one Indigo machine in six to eight hours.”

Designed to meet the most demanding peak production deadlines and financial targets, the HP Indigo 7600 Digital Press is the only digital sheet-fed press on the market that can print four million color pages every month. The increased efficiency also helped the company cut down on labor costs. Geskus notes: “Three people can now produce the same amount of work that five did using silver halide.”

Backed by the improved photo quality and production efficiency of the HP Indigo 7600 Digital Press, Geskus Photography has been able to take on more jobs and grow business by 30%. Looking ahead, Geskus wants to continue adding more business and stay at the leading edge of the photo industry. He concludes: “Switching to the HP Indigo 7600 Digital Press has given us a new step on the market.”