Giving a Dam

According to Lanigan, while up to 80 percent of converters and flexographers regularly receive a flood of digital material (files), many still lack the infrastructure to store, retrieve and distribute those files. Phototype provides that infrastructure via an asset management "brain" called "Photoscope," a turnkey service designed to archive graphic assets on a relational, as opposed to a hierarchical, database. Using Photoscope, Phototype can tie in to the flexographer's or converter's existing system(s) or other database(s) within the printer's or converter's workflow, or link to these via the Internet. "The first thing we try to do is to step back, determine what the ideal system would be, and then determine how to customize the Photoscope software for the unique needs of that printer," Lanigan says.