BNF HARDWARE CO., LTD , https://www.bnfhardware.cn
The CTP technology has been rapidly popularized in recent years. It will appear as a mature technology at the IPEX 2002 exhibition. The development of many related technologies will make the CTP technology more stable and reliable. For CTP technology, besides the issues of selecting a heat-sensitive coffin or a light-sensitive plate, selecting an internal drum or an external drum imager, or front-end driving, the most important thing is to understand the market acceptance of digital workflow and digital proofing. degree.
Therefore, to explore the progress of the output technology, it must involve the development trend of the output equipment workflow, mainly CTP, CTF and digital proofing equipment.
CTP
The entire output market, from the imaging output of the film to the direct output of the computer plate, can be said to be developing rapidly. However, CTF sales in 2001 still exceeded CTP. What are the reasons?
More companies produce film than companies that produce plates. Prepress companies, publishing companies and printing companies all make films, and only the printing companies and a few prepress companies are involved in the CTP business.
Due to the high cost of development, the CTP plate prices remain high. However, the economic scale of CTP plate production will soon go up and prices will fall.
The price of the platesetter is much higher than that of CTF equipment. It is estimated that if the CTP plate maker is only 20% higher than the CTF price, its popularity will be greatly increased.
There is fierce competition in the small format market, especially in the octal and quadruple presses market. There is plenty of room for the printing industry to choose. In this market, there are not many inexpensive automatic CTP devices.
The situation of CTP in different markets is also very different. In the United States, CTP is the preferred web offset printing company, but only from the beginning of 2000, the B1 format sheet-fed printing press printing company began to invest in this area. In Europe and Japan, CTP technology was first popularized on B1 format printers, and then it was adopted by more profitable B2 format printers, and CTP was involved in web offset machines for a long time. In other markets, human resources are abundant, and the most important thing is price, so CTF can still be popular.
With the development of the local economy and the coordination of dealers' price and performance, the development of CTP will not be far off. At the same time, potential customers should also move closer to the digital workflow and start using digital proofing technology on a large scale instead of using Film for contract proofing.
Full digital workflow
CTP solutions can only play their full power in a fully digital workflow. At IPEX 2002, we will be able to see the evolution of the front-end system from optimizing the output device to centering on optimizing the workflow. At present, most RIP service systems support multiple file formats, from PDF, Postscript, EPS, DCS, and a mix or stand-alone or form of these formats, to CT/LW-based models such as TIFF/IT and Scitex Handshake. CopyDot file can do anything.
Most systems are equipped with features such as built-in preflight, color management, trapping, imposition, etc. throughout the entire printing process. Some systems perform single-page traps early on, while others do trapping at the final output stage. Almost all systems have ICC-based color management capabilities that can convert RGB graphics or images into CMYK forms that can be analog-printed using digital proofing devices or exported to another printing system, such as a gravure printing device.
NORM (a normalization, multiple processing) and ROOM (a processing, multiple output) can be said to have swept the entire industry before 2000. PDF1.3/1.4 and CT/LW create a completely open NORM workflow. Some systems, such as Apogee and CelebraNT, use a PDF workflow on the front end, but can synthesize and output the processed 1-bit TIFF files.
In addition, many printers use CTP technology, which means that it will use CIP3 PPF to process the full digital ink set and other control functions.
Proofing
Proofing is an important part of a full digital workflow. The color management function brings great progress to the printing process.
Digital technology brings a large number of solutions to proofing. Kodak Approval, Polaroid, and Imation Digital Matchprint can output data for designated devices and even thermal CTP imaging devices, but are generally not suitable for all Pantone colors. IRIS and Digital Cromalin have taken a firm step in the field of contract proofing with the advantage of continuous inkjet.
From CTF to CTP
As mentioned above, sales of CTF equipment are still ahead of CTP equipment, especially in the B2 and B1 format printing markets. This is even more significant. By using a special developing device, polyester plates can be directly plated on existing CTF equipment. For small print companies, this is an economical alternative to aluminum-based CTP plates. Both the plate and the imaging device are more economical and can be switched between CTF and CTP.
From CTF to CTP is a shortcut into the full digital workflow, but also allows customers to better understand the digital file transfer. In addition, CTF imaging equipment can still come in handy as it evolves into CTP. Even if the use of a second CTP device to handle different sizes or proofing can offset the investment of two imaging devices, few people can achieve 100% CTP in one step.
Printing plate
The choice of CTP plates becomes more and more difficult.
The focus is mainly on the selection of thermal plates and photosensitive plates, and the choice of semi-automatic and fully-automatic plate processing and imaging. In the aspect of high network number and brightroom operation, the thermal plate has advantages, and in some cases, the thermal plate also has advantages in printing resistance. However, the thermal plate production cost and processing cost are in most cases 10% to 20% higher than those of the photosensitive plate.
The demand for flush-free plates has grown slowly. Because in the prepress phase it requires completely different ways of maintenance. The operator no longer needs to replenish the developer in the developer, nor does he need to rinse the plate. It only needs to clean the imaging equipment and remove precipitated material. It will take time before the process of flushing plates becomes a matter of time. In our opinion, direct imaging on the press may be the success of the flush-free CTP plate application.
In 2000, visible light CTP technology developed to the third generation, its resistance to printing force is greater, and its quality is higher. The violet laser CTP plate has appeared and can be operated under a yellow safety light. Choosing between a thermal plate and a photosensitive plate not only considers the operability of the bright room, but also considers cost issues. At the current stage, not only the price of thermal plates is high, but also the cost of thermal CTP imaging equipment and the maintenance cost of laser equipment are also higher by 15%.
The degree of automation of CTP is directly proportional to the capital investment. The plate-making machine has both manual and semi-automatic plates (the plate can only accommodate a limited number of plates of one size) and the fully-automatic plates (the plates can only accommodate a limited number of plates. A variety of sizes of plates) and full-automatic version (only 500 plates of different sizes can be accommodated in the plate). Fully automatic plate-making platesetter can be produced without stopping the machine for 24 hours.
The benefit of manually printing a CTP is that its quality is good, but its efficiency is quite low. If you do not care about labor costs, and the amount of plate making is less than 40 a day, semi-automatic version of the CTP machine will be sufficient. If a full-size plate of various sizes is to be manufactured, and the plate-making volume is 50 or more, it is necessary to use a fully-automatic plate-making plate-making machine.
Overview
Although CTP is a major trend, the situation in each company is completely different. One of the most important driving forces is that it can save the time spent in prepress and printing, and it requires fewer employees. And where it needs to be improved is quality and stability.
Prices of plates and imaging equipment are not expected to fall in the short term, and dealers of plate imaging equipment still invest a lot of manpower and financial resources to increase plate production and improve the automation of CTP imaging equipment.
Development trends of CTP, CTF and proofing
After a few retreats in the 25 years before the 1990s, by the mid-1990s, many people in the industry believed that the era of computer-to-plate (CTP) technology had come.