It’s a Brave New World

What can be done to make analog platemaking more competitive? It comes down to the size of the dot, Kelsall explains. Compared with a conventionally imaged flexographic plate, a digitally imaged dot yields a more precise transfer of ink relative to the size of the dot it prints than its conventionally imaged counterpart. Since the dot does not change size, the plate can hold a much smaller dot than a conventional plate, yielding a printed image that is closer to continuous tone quality than is possible with conventional plates. No real changes can make analog platemaking more competitive, Kelsall concludes, because “to achieve what digital does in analog amounts to a restriction of the process” to which the photopolymer plate is exposed.