Operation Digital Output
Shopping for and finding digital output devices to enhance workflow productivity is a matter of education in relation to your needs.
By Marie Ranoia Alonso
SHOPPING THE output odyssey is not a simple task for package printers looking to expand in a digital direction. So many solutions in the platesetting segment, so much to consider. Thermal or non-thermal platesetter? Small or large format? Semi- or fully-automated? What is the ROI?
Pay close attention to new OEM agreements, such as the recently struck Agfa agreement to market Krause America's LaserStar 140 and LaserStar 170 platesetters, bringing a great deal of PDF power to the Krause line. Also, take notice of the ongoing technological initiatives of the Heidelberg/Creo alliance which should prove for interesting moves in digital platemaking and digital color proofing.
Dan Keane, president at Buffalo, NY-based Mod-Pac, a converter of folding cartons for the pharmaceutical, healthcare, food, confectionery and automotive markets, did his homework regarding digital prepress options. Currently, Mod-Pac has a digital prepress unit routed to the Macintosh G3 platform. The prepress force at Mod-Pac accepts a bulk of its work via digital file transfer, primarily using 4-Sight's iSDN Manager. It also operates a Kodak DCP 9000 digital color proofer, with a Creo Spectrum halftone digital color proofer on order from Heidelberg Prepress.
Making the decision to be a thermal CTP shop, Mod-Pac accomplishes its digital platesetting on a Creo Trendsetter 3244, driven by a Delta workstation from Heidelberg Prepress. PackPilot, Heidelberg's digital workflow solution for packaging, is in place in the Mod-Pac operation, delivering automated step-and-repeat, as well as built-in nesting.
How digital does Keane want Mod-Pac to go? The folding carton converter is working to be fully CIP3 compliant (see CIP3 Refresher sidebar, this page), sporting CPC32 functionality from Heidelberg, which gives Mod-Pac a digital interface between the prepress and press departments.
"We are moving to an all-digital workflow, with perhaps the final piece of our puzzle being the installation of our Creo Spectrum digital proofer," Keane reports. "With shortening cycle times, increased production pressures and remarkable achievements in digital technologies designed to address both concerns, the logical move for any packaging environment is in a digital direction."
Pointing any prepress environment in that all-digital direction, though, takes some planning. Still, the end result may be well worth the headaches and calculations factored into any purchase plans.
"One of the most important things CTP brings to the package printing table is consistency—the true ability to generate consistent plates day in, day out, with a nonvariable process," asserts Achim Schmidt, manager for the packaging and label industry, Heidelberg.
On the digital platesetter front, the market seems virtually saturated with strong contenders. Recently, Creo introduced ThermoFlex, a flexographic CTP solution for converters and tradeshops. ThermoFlex is a semi-automatic, very large format flexographic platesetter that can hold a plate as large as 52"x80". The plate is registered both horizontally and vertically for accuracy.
Front runners
At Agfa, the eight-up Galileo and the Antares family are taking center stage in the platesetting segment. In its U.S. launch, the manual version of the 1064nm thermal Galileo will take a prominent position, alongside the fully automated version of the green-laser Galileo.
"The key factor is delivery on the promise of automation and the freedom of choice in implementing that automation," explains Steve Musselman, marketing manager for CTP and imagesetting systems at Agfa. "The two greatest demands are for full automation and simplicity; these will be the deciding factors that will cause some of the current devices on the market to be weeded out by DRUPA 2000."
BARCO Graphics is approaching the thermal market with the four-up Crescent32 and eight-up Crescent42 internal-drum platesetters, offered originally from Gerber Systems. Both Crescent models can be equipped with an optional Escort autoloader and can be upgraded for thermal plate imaging using 1064nm IR-sensitive plates.
And what of Creo? Now strongly teamed with Heidelberg Prepress, Creo offers a field of thermal platesetting models: the Trendsetter 3244, Trendsetter 3230, Platesetter 3244, Trendsetter AL and Trendsetter Spectrum. Also from Creo are the VLF Trendsetter for very large-format applications and the ThermoFlex for the packaging market.
The Heidelberg/Creo platesetter family is based on external-drum architecture with interchangeable imaging heads, and thermal and visible light. Heidelberg/Creo output devices can image plates from 13àx15.5à to 58àx80à. All Trendsetter products feature fully automated plate loading and automatic compensation for a full range of plate sizes. The Trendsetter AL automatically loads, images and unloads up to 25 plates.
At Optronics, platesetting attention remains focused on Aurora technology and the ALS external-drum digital platesetter, which features argon ion or optical YAG lasers. They are capable of imaging plates as large as 35.4àx44.5à at resolutions from 1,000 dpi to 4,000 dpi. ALS provides automatic loading and unloading.
Turning to Krause America, marketing attention is going to the eight-up LaserStar LS110, an internal-drum device that exposes printing plates and film. Krause has introduced its second generation 1064 thermal exposure head, which will expose plates substantially faster.
The basysPrint CTcP (computer-to-conventional plate) digital-UV platesetter can image any conventional offset plate, film or UV-sensitive proofing materials. However, when a Citiplate dual photopolymer-coated AQUA LHP plate is imaged, digital imaging and exposure times are up to 80 percent faster than with standard, single-emulsion conventional plates.
Where to now?
So, where is the packaging industry heading, relative to digital platesetting? According to Ray Cassino, CTP manager for Heidelberg Prepress, "The packaging industry is perhaps the most prone industry and market segment ready to go CTP, with full digital solutions for step-and-repeat permeating the industry, assuring higher accuracy and consistency."
As CMM International approaches, it will be wise to note the latest CTP initiatives of the major prepress providers. If you plan to attend, bring an output shopping list complete with questions touching on issues from thermal CTP's potential to the benefits of digital color proofing or even the viability of linking your prepress department with your pressroom via full-throttle digital initiatives the likes of CIP3. Bring a list. Check it twice.
Technology Education
Need a CIP3 Refresher?
CIP3—The International Cooperation for the Integration of Prepress, Press and PostPress—was launched in 1995 by German pressmaker Heidelberger Druckmaschinen. The CIP3 project was born from the industry-wide desire to link printing and postpress processes closer to prepress production, with data generated in the prepress phase being used for administrative purposes, as well as assisting in further stages of print production.
The mission of CIP3 is embodied in the Print Production Format (PPF), a file that is syntactically identical to a PostScript file and adheres to the PostScript specifications. A PPF file, the enabling link of CIP3, can be part of a PostScript file that is consumed by the RIP to create images, or it can also function on its own to link prepress to press in areas of ink zone settings and more.
Today, this growing consortium of 30 participants includes technological prepress initiatives from the likes of Agfa Div., Bayer Corp., BARCO Graphics, Creo Products, Heidelberg Prepress, Scitex, Screen and more, with press performers the likes of Heidelberg, Komori and MAN Roland also contributing technological strides.
Technology Perspective
Stepping Up To The Plate
An interview with Citiplate's Charles Cusumano, Jr. reveals some unique perspectives regarding plate types and their relationship to workflow.
Q. What kind of plates are out there for package printing environments?
A. In the conventional photopolymer aluminum plates arena there are older, solvent-based plates, as well as the newer, more environmentally friendly aqueous-based types. Within the aqueous class, there are also single- and dual-photopolymer emulsion-coated conventional plates. With the explosion of CTP, there are also many new types of plates and emulsions that are not conventional at all. These expose with lasers of different wavelengths. None of those new CTP plates exposes with UV, nor processes anything like a conventional plate. And prices vary widely. Some new CTP plates, for example, are priced as much as 30 percent to 70 percent higher than conventional plates.
Q. What other issues about plates do you see in relation to CTP?
A. Long term, I'd say filmless digital exposure of plates will be the method of choice. Short term, it seems quite unlikely that clients will drop film and switch overnight to digital job files. So, issue No.1 for package printers is the added cost of having to live in two worlds and maintain two separate platemaking workflows. There are a great many standing film flats for frequently reprinted jobs out there. When jobs are reprinted, those flats will be exposed onto conventional, UV-sensitive plates. But, there is also a growing number of digital jobs from customers. For those, direct-to-plate seems the best answer. But, using the majority of CTP systems, that will mean going direct to a "special" kind of plate completely unlike a conventional plate. That situation will demand a parallel workflow: one for film-based conventional platemaking; the other for making laser CTP plates. This means higher investment and operating costs to keep two platemaking lines in operation. Alternatively, however, there is now a non-laser system which enables conventional plates to be imaged, using film or digital exposure, and processed through one common line.
Q. What plate characteristics chiefly affect package printing?
A. At least three. First, exposure speed and resolution. The photopolymer emulsion on ordinary conventional plates is a single coating that varies in thickness. As a result, single-coated plates are relatively slow to expose. That loses precious time in prep. Single-coat plate resolution is also low, due to lack of definition in "dot" images. Dual-coated plates have thicker emulsions that expose faster and have a higher profile and dot definition. Next is a plate's ink and water balance. How much water a plate requires is determined by the graining of its aluminum base. Most conventional plates are electrochemically grained. These need more water than plates that are brush-grained. Water affects a job's color consistency, drying, coating and turnaround. Excess water leads to ink emulsification, dilution and toning. So, the less water a plate needs, the better (or faster) these become. A plate that requires minimum water and prints at highest image resolution ensures top image quality and color consistency. It also saves drying time and permits faster delivery. Finally, there is durability. A plate image formed in a heavier, dual photopolymer emulsion coating will run longer than the same image in a thin, single-coat emulsion.
Technology Profile
Digital Proofing 101
by Ray Cassino, CTP business manager, Heidelberg Prepress
Digital color proofing is one of the hottest topics today surrounding the adoption of CTP systems. Although there are many types of technologies and devices available, the Iris Realist inkjet proofer with Heidelberg color management technology is a strong candidate.
Color match between the two technologies can be achieved by using the following Heidelberg Prepress software products: Print Open ICC 3.0, Color InkJet—also known as the Delta/Iris software—and Heidelberg CMM (Color Matching Module).
Print Open is a Macintosh application from Heidelberg Prepress. When used in conjunction with a spectrophotometer it creates ICC profiles—fingerprints of what a device can print.
Color InkJet is the utility software that is loaded on a Delta Workstation and is used to operate the Iris Proofer, controlling the loading and unloading of paper, scatter proofing, tiling, etc. and the assignment of the ICC profiles.
The Heidelberg CMM is the color matching engine that looks at both the source and target ICC profiles and makes one look like the other. This software is part of the Color InkJet software that runs on the Delta workstation connected to the Iris Proofer.
Upon printing on the Iris, the color matching engine (CMM) looks at both the source ICC profile and target ICC profile. Then using three dimensional color space transformations, matches the values of the ICC for the SM 102 CD to that of the Iris ICC profile. Thus the color match.
With this method of making ICC profiles for both the proofing device and the print condition the proof is being matched to the press not vice versa. What this means is that the package printer can now supply to the client a contract proof that the press is capable of matching. This makes for a shorter color approval sign off process, a happy client and a happy press operator.—
