“Apex was the first colour print lab in Pune. In the former days, Most of the customers used to head towards Mumbai or down south for colour print jobs,” KamruddinChikodi, owner, Apex Digital Lab said.

It ventured into digital printing on 1 August, 2008 with the aim of providing a 24x7 printing service to the photographers and print providers in Pune by installing a Noritsu 3701. The company also owns a HP Designjet 5500 wide-format laminating machine, and provides blow-ups and lamination services to its customers.

Asked why he opted for Xerox 1000 press, Chikodi said, “Xerox 1000 gave us a cutting edge in meeting the key customer demands of quality, offset-like finish, and allowed us to play with a wide range of media. We have used the fifth colour clear dry ink unit of the press for various jobs that required digital watermarks for artistic effect or security, variable text, and for printing high value tickets and coupons. We had tried to sample the prints on different presses but later decided on Xerox owing to the quality, equipment size, and power consumption.”

Pankaj Kalra, head, graphic communications business, Xerox India said, “Close interaction with our customers like Apex Digital Lab provides us with a unique opportunity to offer real business solutions to their real business challenges.”

Apex currently deals in photo printing, wide format printing, photo book albums and sublimation printing. However, with a battery of album making machines recently installed at the printing centre, Apex aims to capture the photobook and wedding album market in the near future. We plan to print at least 60 albums everyday with the new equipment, and hope to hit the 100 albums-per-day mark soon,” shares Chikodi.