Consumables-General - Plates

The digital-versus-analog debate continues. By Terri McConnell Terri, I read your column last month about [color management] and was wondering if you were going to highlight the difficulties we have with digital proofing in the packaging industry. These "difficulties" specifically pertain to spot colors and the use of modified process. With flexo, gravure, and limited offset packaging, we still have a hard time finding a quality digital proofing device that can reproduce good color when mixing the spot colors together with four-color process... . The world of digital proofing would be so much better if there were products [and] materials [available now] to

A primer on the foundations of color communication. By Terri McConnell In the ideal world…the brand manager for a new line of lunch-box juices envisions his Citrus Cooler eight-pack carton: a brilliant, sun-ripened orange on a soft, butter-yellow field with the Florida Fun logo emblazoned in warm, metallic gold. The designer, working from the manager's creative brief, mocks up the package using his favorite DTP programs, and e-mails the concept to the manager as a PDF file. The manager views the PDF on his PC monitor, and sends a note back: "Perfect! Let's see a prototype on Tuesday." The designer forwards the PDF to

What tricks can help printers handle trapping's complexities? By Terri McConnell An in-house prepress and plating operation can provide more precise control over image reproduction and can significantly reduce turnaround times, while offering tremendous flexibility for coping with last-minute remakes and inevitable scheduling changes. Some printers are electing to bring only the final "output" phase of the process in-house. They still rely on trade shops or color separators to perform all the magic required to transform a desktop packaging design into a plate-ready electronic job file that can be fed into a computer-controlled imaging device. And it is magic; design files supplied by the

Implementing CTP may be viewed as a technological journey whose length and destination depend on your operation's starting point. by Terri McConnell Since its phenomenal debut at DRUPA in 1995, computer-to-plate (CTP) technology has been integrated into the daily routines of printers across nearly every commercial and packaging application. Why? Because the benefits of imaging directly to the printing plate surface from digital data are irrefutable. Digitally imaged plates carry sharper dots and are capable of delivering a wider color gamut. They register better on press. They are free of pinholes and the effects of light diffusion associated with analog film-based plate production. CTP

Printers willing to work through a few minor obstacles can reap huge rewards by implementing "total digital workpath" concepts and technologies. by Terri McConnell In 1919, three gentlemen put up $500 dollars each to start a new business in downtown Cincinnati. The company—Phototype Engraving—took its name from an amazing new technology for photographing type and etching it into metal printing plates. During the past 80 years, Phototype Engraving has remarkably remained on the leading edge of packaging printing technology, offering a comprehensive portfolio of services ranging from digital photography, to image asset management, to conventional and photopolymer platemaking, to short-run printing. The company is

Package printers are just now beginning to see the light at the end of a long tunnel of confusing, and often ill-fitting file formats. by Terri McConnell Even dynamite could not have changed the face manufacturing infrastructure of the printing industry more than the advent of desktop publishing and the subsequent adoption of PostScript. Up to that point, prepress automation was directed by a handful of highly-specialized equipment suppliers who built color electronic prepress systems (CEPS) around laser-powered film output devices. CEPS were, for the most part, closed, proprietary environments—not a big problem as long as the origin and form of printing content were

Packaging-specific prepress technologies are opening new lines of communication, unprecedented quality-enhancement opportunities for printers, and strategic alliances between suppliers. by Terri McConnell "It doesn't get any better than this" was one of the first principles I was taught 15 years ago as a fledgling mechanical artist. Thankfully the statement wasn't a commentary on my career potential—it was a strong warning that as layouts moved through the analog printing process, image quality had generally nowhere to go but down. I also remember another warning: "When a press operator walks through those swinging doors carrying plates, pray he's not looking for you." In those days, little

Imagesetters stay active in lieu of—or alongside—computer-to-plate. By Susan Friedman Make no mistake, the imagesetter is alive and kicking. Aggressive advances in computer-to-plate (CTP) haven't proved fatal to imagesetter usage or upgrades, and suppliers haven't let up on steady releases of both hardware and software improvements. Hardware, software review Each basic imagesetter design offers a fit for a certain segment of package printers. "Capstan-driven devices are better for dimensional stability over long images, and drum devices offer superior repeatability," states Pierre Ferland, marketing director, Alan Graphic Systems. Several color separations can be grouped on a single piece of film only in a drum device,

Digital proofers can produce packaging's custom colors in minutes, but can converters afford the technology they need? By Susan Friedman Digital proofing's transformation of proof production cycle time is bound to help package printers over any separation anxiety for film. To hear Neil Potter, business manager for the packaging market at Imation tell it, digital proofing's productivity benefits can't get much clearer. Printers can trade analog proofing's half-day to two-day cycle times, or on-press proofing's two-day to one-week cycle times, in favor of a digital proof produced in minutes, he says. Presstek Product Manager Sandy Fuhs adds that digital proofing can remove the majority

Offset plate suppliers stretch to manage conventional- and digital-world needs. By Susan Friedman Many offset plate suppliers are stretching to be in two places at once—edging conventional technologies up a notch while running like mad to win the digital marathon. Convention rally On the conventional side, Dwight Collier, national sales manager for pressroom products at Pitman Co., a distributor of printing consumables, equipment and services, sees "a conscious effort to continue to improve plate latitude in a variety of environments." Three areas of emphasis, he notes, are developing coating weights that are more resistant to abrasion, improving grain structures to achieve a more efficient