The Dichotomies of the Global Printing Industry

It was not Computer-to-Plate (CTP) that changed the world. CTP is merely the tip of a giant iceberg called “workflow”—one level of process automation. Through the 1980s and 1990s, film was a primary manufacturing medium for printers. All pages eventually wound up as film negatives which were required to make plates. Pre-media services converted art and type to film and then “stripped” it up (assembled it) into composite form. For printers, film could come from outside sources and this was especially true for publication advertisements. When all film units had been assembled, they were used to expose printing plates.