American Ink Jet Develops Lightfast Inks for Iris and Epson Printers.

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 31, 1999--

American Ink Jet Corporation, developer and manufacturer of ink jet inks, continues implementation of its C3 - Calibrated Color Chemistry - strategy with the announcement of three new inks with superior image permanence for the Digital Fine Art market, Omni Tones, Pinnacle Gold Iris and Pinnacle Gold Epson.

Omni Tones, for professionals who specialize in black & white imagery, have a small CMYK gamut engineered specifically for black and white printing allowing for slight tonal variations. Pinnacle Gold Iris and Pinnacle Gold Epson are specifically designed to increase lightfast/archivability without sacrificing the chromatic color space artists expect from American Ink Jet inks. Digital artist, Rob Steinberg(1), one of the first artist to use Pinnacle Gold Iris exclaims, "As a set Pinnacle Gold gives better balance, beautiful stable gray tones and a wide color gamut. Prints are sharper because of less wicking. They are everything I had hoped for in color from a lightfast ink - I won't be going back to any other set."

"We thought we had our best color set with our NE Iris inks, but the color space and chromatic, highly saturated prints we've seen from Beta tests, coupled with improved image permanence should impress even the finicky of ink jet users", said President & CEO, Michael Andreottola, about the new lightfast ink sets. "We've worked hard this past year and have focused on advancing all technology for R&D and manufacturing into the production of quality, superior solutions for the ink jet printing market. These specialty inks for the fine art market are just the beginning. We are now applying our unique lightfast dye-technology to encompass ink jet inks across all platforms."

30 Years and Counting

With display-life tests currently in progress through Wilhelm Imaging Research, Inc, the image permanence ratings for Pinnacle Gold Iris are already at 30 years and AIJ Omni Tones at 20 years. "As the testing continues, American Ink Jet estimates permanence ratings for Pinnacle Gold Iris to reach 75 -100 years and the Omni Tones to test at 100+ years", said Michael Andreottola. Results will continue to be posted at www.wilhelm-research.com and final results will be posted on the AIJ web site, www.amjet.com. Pinnacle Gold Epson inks are slated to begin permanence testing next month with anticipated display-life tests to match those of Pinnacle Gold Iris.

American Ink Jet expects to have all inks available for shipping in Q1 2000. Both Pinnacle Gold Iris and the Omni Tones have been engineered for all Iris printers, while the Pinnacle Gold Epson will first be made available for the Epson 5000 with product for all other Epson printers, including the 9000, released in subsequent months.

American Ink Jet located in Billerica, Massachusetts is an ISO 9001 certified manufacturing company committed to development and manufacturing of the highest quality, technically advanced, ink jet inks for the global ink jet-printing marketplace. The company maintains multidisciplinary research and development staffs who apply Calibrated Color Chemistry (C3) technology in producing inks for the ever-evolving ink jet market. To find out more about C3 technology please email [e-mail].

(1)Rob Steinberg has been an artist since the 60's originally working in Platinum and Albumen Printing and has been working with Digital Technology since 1979. In 1991 he switched media from traditional printing to Ink-Jet. Rob is currently taking a break as a full-time artist and is President of NAPC, www.napc.com. Headquartered in Boston, MA, with additional sales and support offices in New York, NAPC markets range from advertising and book publishing to government mapping and multi-media communication. NAPC specializes in providing tools for storing, manufacturing and delivering digital assets.