Digital Printing Technology (I)

While weighing the non-film plate, printers are also concerned with new plate products, including plateless printing. Metal prefabricated sensitized plates have long been considered as a simple and very general consumable for graphic printing products and have attracted a lot of attention in recent years. Why? Because computer-to-plate (CTP) applications are becoming more widespread, printers are also paying their full attention to the media market. This choice seems to be based on the growth of daily statistics. The statistical coverage includes thermal plates, development-free plates, ultraviolet sensitized plates, and blue-violet laser-exposed plates.
Even newer methods are emerging. For example: CreoScitex demonstrated a new atomized sputter plate at the 2000 Graph Expo & Converting Expo in Chicago.
Pay Prince, Senior Technical Consultant of the Printing Technology Foundation of the United States, said: “No one would be willing to participate in a seminar on printing plates 5-10 years ago, but printing is now a hot topic because printers are trying to increase productivity and speed up. With the change of ideas, printing plates have become the key to solving these challenges. What will happen to the next generation of printing plates will seem to be a very interesting issue."
The importance of digital plates
Prince believes that the market position of the traditional printing plate is still firm and can be described as a huge market, he added: “However, the printer is looking for a free plate, because it is very attractive to CTP and More choices. There are other problems with the thermal plate, such as the dot size and control of the sensitivity of the non-image area. However, some manufacturers' thermal plates are still selling well."
David Furman, senior manager of Agfa Marketing Department, said on the printing plate: “Although traditional metal plates still have a huge market, manufacturers have turned their research and development efforts to digital plates, regardless of digital plates. As the market has skyrocketed and the sales of traditional printing plates are relatively stable, we see that the entire printing plate market will grow by 5% in 2000."
Kodak Polyray Company expressed this view, and Dave Bartram, the company’s global CTP manager, said: “While the supply of traditional printing plates is stable and reliable, and will continue to be an important part of the market, we are seeing the rapid application of CTP. The increase in demand for printing plates is due to the reduction in the number of long-lived prints and the increase in color services."
The thermal plate Kodak Polyray lighted Bao Quan all on thermal technology. Bruce Davidson, manager of the company's global plate market, said: "We are fully committed to thermal imaging technology and the application of this technology has grown significantly. This year we will also apply newer thermal technologies to our plate products. We also No non-thermal plate has been developed."
The violet laser diode “violet laser can reduce the cost of the exposure light source. The photosensitive range of the printing plate varies between 405-410 nm so that the operator can work under the yellow safety light.” said Jim Crawford, Product Development Manager, Fujifilm Prefabricated Products : "This negates the claim that thermal plates are superior to visible light plates. The use of violet laser diode technology for imaging on photosensitive plates requires high energy lasers."
Although Agfa, Fuji, and Kodak PolyLight control the US metal plate market, many other manufacturers have also begun to enter this field.
Tom Saggiomo, president of Lastra USA, said: “We believe that the printing plate market will remain healthy for a long time. It is estimated that the market growth rate will remain between 2% and 3% in the next 5 years. We believe The sales volume of CTP plates will eventually exceed the traditional plate products. At present, the application rate of CTP in the United States is already high."
The road to compromise is the search for a compromise between traditional and digital plates.
Panel Prints has been using both Kodak Polystar's traditional plates and CTP plates. They are engaged in a wide range of businesses, including heat transfer, labeling and packaging, short-run prints and hardcover books. Their prepress manager Jerry Castanzo said: “We have been using Kodak Polystar's KNA 4 Hi-Relief printing plate for the past 8 years. In order to improve our production capacity and quality level, we have adopted CTP since July 2000. Technology and the use of Kodak Polychrome's thermal (830nm) CTP plate, so that our inking effect is more ideal, faster positioning, preparation work more quickly."
Speed ​​is critical to Panel Prints because most of its printing business is small, basically between 8000-9000. William M. Abene, president and chief executive officer of the company, said: “High-speed plate making is very important. At present, we use traditional plate-making methods to make up 60% of the total plate-making. Our goal is that the traditional plate-making volume and CTP plate-making volume each account for 50 percent. % We hope that the customer will save our work in memory without having to make it into film."
Never have to make a choice
New digital on-demand printers do not have to choose between traditional or CTP plates, they need to choose what kind of digital plate.
In May 2000, Dream Color became the first digital on-demand printing company to use the Saphira thermal printing plate in Heidelberg. The company’s Tom Hochleutner said: “After installing the Speedmaster 74DI five-color printing press with water-based and UV coating, we started using the Saphira printing plate. The printing quality of this printing plate is quite high, and the dots are kept very well. Yes, we use 200 lines/inch screen printing in both short and long-term business.” On any day, Dream Color can print 80,000-100,000 12-page flower delivery service announcements, wine brochures and short Edition of stationery store catalog cover page and so on. Hochleutner appreciates the speed and ease of use of this printing plate. He said: “We are imaging the Saphira plates on the press. We can image all five plates in four to five minutes. It is very easy to use. After we mount the plates, we use the console to image them. .
Print on demand
Dream Color decided to launch an on-demand printing service within five years of its establishment. It is committed to serving customers throughout the United States. Now it has to receive 400 orders each month, and the printing capacity of two printing presses exceeds 40 million.
Before using the 74DI press, Dream Color used two Heidelberg Quickmaster DI (QMDI) presses. During the first four months of using the 74DI, the company printed more than 10 million copies on this press. Dream Color hopes to install a second 74DI in a reasonable amount of time.
The right combination
Many printers are looking for a high speed, high quality, environmentally friendly printing plate.
Business and book printer Perfection Press found such plates in Presstek's new Anthem product. The company is now using a four-color Adast 845 sheet-fed duplexer, two bi-colour Heidelberger GTOs, an Agfa Chromapress and a Xerox DocuTech system, plus two 8-page Didde webs Printing presses.
“Our work efficiency is too low, so we are always looking for a new digital plate,” said plant manager Randall Cavanah: “We’ll continue to use Agfa’s traditional Enco plate for the original document, but We found that CTP is a viable path. After using CTP technology, we do not need to use chemicals, so that the Anthem plate has environmental characteristics. Our plate-making staff likes this kind of press sheet, they just need to adjust the mesh once. It is awesome to use such a printing plate."
Perfection Press, a subsidiary of Perfection Learning, produces paper bound and hardcover books. In the past five years, it has gradually transformed itself into commercial printing, mainly printing brochures and flyers.
Cavanah said: “Positioning is very important to us. We have printed many books about animals. The beards of animals must be accurately aligned. There are many underwater lenses in the book. These photos are very dark and not easy to handle. The new Anthem The printing plate can guarantee the quality of our printing work and vividly reproduce the details. Its color part and the depth of the ink line are ideal. It is as bright as day and night."
Since Perfection has an average of 1,500 jobs per business, using this plate can significantly reduce production costs. Cavanah said: "We have to change many printing plates. From January 2000 to now we use 1,000 plates per month, and sometimes more. In this case, direct computer printing is of great significance to us. ."
New digital printing plate
Agfa introduced three CTP plates in March 2000: Mistral, Lithostar Ultra and Thermolite.
Mistral is a thermal plate that requires no development and can achieve a 300-line/inch screen for a large number of jobs. The plates are based on advanced thermal ablation technology and Agfa claims that it takes only a few minutes to image the plates and prepare them for printing. Mistral plates can also be safely operated in sunlight, eliminating the need for dark rooms or special work areas. The device is optimized for the Calileo Talant CTP system and is compatible with other advanced thermal ablation systems.
Lithostar Ultra is a positive aluminum version that is compatible with all major visible imaging techniques. It comes in 3 models and can be adapted to different imaging sources. These 3 models include Lithostar Ultra LAP-V (purple/400nm), Lithostar Ultra LAP-O (positive 488nm and 532nm) and Lithostar Ultra LAP-R (red sensitive) /650-670nm).
These plates can be imaged using the new violet laser Agile Galileo VS and Galileo VXT platesetter.
On-machine imaging or offline imaging
Agfa Thermolite is a printing plate that does not need to be developed. It has a print level of 20,000 to 30,000. It can perform on-press imaging or offline imaging and can be operated in daylight. It uses non-ablative printing plate technology, sand alumina base, mesh lines 2001pi, compatible with a variety of printing presses.
Thermolite is based on phase change technology and does not require a vacuum extraction system or special treatment. When printing, the ink roller removes the non-image coating of Thermolite and this coating quickly transfers to the first few pages of the print.
Thermolite does not contaminate the fountain solution or inking unit, and the operator does not need to clean the plate or make adjustments.