Consumables-General - Plates

Two packaging printers share their ideas on preflighting electronic design files. IT WAS A printer by the name of Ben Franklin who once quipped "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." Farsighted and wise as he was, Ben could never have imagined how true those words would ring for his twenty-first century inky-fingered brethren. Preflighting—the process of reviewing and repairing incoming electronic files from agencies and designers—is good medicine for avoiding costly and time-consuming problems further down the road in the production process. Whether you use off-the-shelf preflighting software, or have developed your own procedures, the extent to which you examine

Software modeling can provide significant timesavings when moving from concept to final design selection. LAST TIME I checked my list of top-10 packaging business buzzwords, the term "value-add" had slipped the ranks. Along with other feel-good phrases like "total quality" and "solutions provider," it's getting squeezed out to the jargon fringe by new favorites like "commodity," "consolidation," and "supply-chain optimization." Maybe those terms weigh in heavier during times of economic uncertainty, but I find it refreshing that there are still links in the packaging supply chain where there is opportunity to add value. Where? In the rendering, or visualization, of new packaging designs.

In just a few short years, the use of digital cameras has moved to the forefront in commercial and creative photography. by Terri McConnell, Prepress Editor OKAY, WHO DIDN'T get a digital camera for Christmas? In a report released last June, market analysts at Dataquest, Inc. stated that U.S. digital camera shipments were on track to reach 8.3 million units by the end of the holiday season, a 30 percent increase from 2001. By 2006, the company predicts that every other American family will be recording their future memories and marking their milestones with a digital camera. Datacomm Research Co., who also tracks, analyzes,

There's some new tools for connectivity and commerce in the world of computer-aided design and manufacturing for packaging. "WHAT'S NEW IN CAD/CAM?" I recently asked this question to Don Skenderian, the man in charge of the most widely used packaging CAD program in the universe. Expecting a more technically oriented, CAD-specific response, I was surprised to get an answer right out of our telecommuted, Internet-age lexicon. He said: "Connectivity." Skenderian—and every other product development director I interviewed for this article—believes that the most important work going on in computer-assisted design and diemaking is collecting, collating, and communicating CAD data to other processes in

Though available for years, options are just now being used to improve prepress workflow. Like most businesses in the current economy, convertors are constantly looking to increase their cost-effectiveness through new technology. One often-overlooked stage that printers have begun to explore in an effort to improve workflow, and therefore costs, is the prepress facet of the industry. Improvements in prepress workflow and/or data transmission have been available for quite a while now, but converters have been slow to take advantage of these opportunities. "The tools for improvement are there," says David Zwang, IPA operational TEAM consultant leader and founder of Zwang & Company,

A look at two ink systems for HiFi printing. By Terri McConnell, Prepress Editor "IN 1903, THE Wright brothers made their first engine-powered flight. Sixty-six years later, we put men on the moon. If you compare the evolution of flight to the evolution of color in print, we're still in the dark ages. Four printing plates and four cans of ink." So begins Matthew Bernasconi's call for a revolution in ink. Bernasconi, founder of the Australian company Opaltone Graphic Solutions, is a passionate evangelist for what is known as HiFi printing—the use of a six- or seven-color ink system to replace the four-color (cyan,

Remote proofing developments raise fundamental business questions. by Terri McConnell, Prepress Editor REMOTE PROOFING IS a set of evolutionary image-communication technologies with mainstream appeal and very broad applications. There is debate on exact terminology, but we'll say that remote proofing denotes the concept of making digital image data accessible to another person, at another location, for review and commentary. The image data may be rendered on a hard copy output device, or it may be viewed onscreen, a practice known as soft proofing. In either case, remote proofing facilitates the sharing of printable images throughout the iterative approval process from concept to completion.

Remote proofing developments raise fundamental business questions. by Terri McConnell, Prepress Editor REMOTE PROOFING IS a set of evolutionary image-communication technologies with mainstream appeal and very broad applications. There is debate on exact terminology, but we'll say that remote proofing denotes the concept of making digital image data accessible to another person, at another location, for review and commentary. The image data may be rendered on a hard copy output device, or it may be viewed onscreen, a practice known as soft proofing. In either case, remote proofing facilitates the sharing of printable images throughout the iterative approval process from concept to

The highly evolved and standardized process of offset platemaking still leaves some room for improvement. by Jessica Millward, Associate Editor THE SOPHISTICATION OF existing offset platemaking processes has not encouraged complacency among equipment suppliers. On the contrary, rising competition from flexo, as well as increasing adoption of CTP and DI practices, have fostered a more innovative path to better plates and processing. Science bests art In offset platemaking's struggle with art versus science, it seems the latter won several years ago. And that is a good thing, contends Richard Butler, product development manager for Fuji Photo Film U.S.A. (Graphic Systems Division). "Really, what

Can the industry adopt a common language for the approval process? by Terril McConnell, Prepress Editor In his national best seller, "Cultural Literacy, What Every American Needs to Know," author J. D. Hirsch argues our society may be suffering from a serious "failure to communicate." Not that we lack the means. The problem, proposes Hirsch, is that we don't necessarily know what to say to one another when we do connect. Hirsch explains public school systems have de-emphasized rote learning, the 3Rs, and literary classics in favor of more innovative and individualized studies on everything from basket weaving to brake shoes, graduating several generations