A Full Plate

CTP pricing issues have also prompted Kodak to release a companion product to its commercially available thermal printing plate, which is sensitive to both conventional UV light and thermal imaging. "The dilemma is that thermal dyes are more expensive," explains Saggiomo. "Some customers don't want to pay a premium to use this plate for analog applications." The new analog product is fundamentally the same plate as the CTP product without the thermal dye—a conventional printing plate that can be processed with the same chemistry as the thermal printing plate, allowing customers to use one plate system during the transition to digital plate making.