A veteran of ten Drupas, Frank Romano dubbed this year's exhibition "the Landa Drupa" during his Print World presentation about the highs and lows of the tech shown in Dusseldorf.

While the RIT professor emeritus predicted that "the new, humble Benny Landa" would make good on claims of a revolutionary new nanographic printing process by around 2016 (a Landa executive said earlier the first installs would be end of 2013), Romano told the crowd that printers looking to get into digital would have to consider buying other machines in the meantime.

As for other technology, Romano gave a thumbs-up to the Kodak Prosper, saying the hybrid digital machine's output quality is close to, and perhaps even exceeds, that of offset lithography.

"Digital colour is closing the productivity gap," said Romano, noting that roll-fed is increasing in speed while sheet-fed offset remains where it was. Most of offset's developments were environmental and its main advantage is that it can still do the range of spot/Pantone colours, said Romano.

While touching on sheet-fed inkjet, Romano highlighted the inconsistent sheet sizes used by different makes and models. "It's a mess," Romano said.  He pointed out that printers will eventually need either specially-sized papers or will have to cut standardized papers, asking with a laugh, "Why do manufacturers of printers never talk to the people who make paper?"