Agfa Corp.

With benefits stemming from the improved quality of digital plates, CtP for flexo is making its presence known. by Tom Polischuk, Editor-in-Chief WITH COMPUTER-TO-PLATE (CtP) technology for flexographic printing nearing its pre-teen years, its benefits are having a significant impact throughout the industry. These benefits are derived from the elimination of film and the on-press efficiencies stemming from improved quality plates. Frances Cicogna, packaging segment marketing manager for Agfa, points out a major difference between the current state of CtP for flexo vs. CtP for offset. "Computer-to-offset is a direct-image process in which the plate is exposed via the laser. Computer-to-flexo uses a digital

Innovative screening technologies are providing package printers with new tools to improve graphic quality. CREATIVE PROBLEM SOLVING is a beautiful thing. When technical process limitations are overcome resulting in tangible quality and productivity improvements, it truly is rewarding for both the developers of the solutions and the people that use them. In the case of packaging screening technologies, suppliers have been hard at work improving and developing innovative techniques and technologies that provide real improvements for package printers and their customers. These solutions have made positive impacts in both offset and flexographic printing applications. And for the most part, the solutions are applicable

Input J Agfa Packaging Solutions The AgfaScan XY-15 Plus is an oversized A3 format CCD flatbed scanner designed for high-productivity scanning. A hand-selected, premium 8,000-element CCD allows the system to achieve a maximum density of 4.1 and resolution of up to 15,000 pixels per inch. Visit www.agfa.com Artwork Systems ArtPro®, PackFlow™, LabelFlow™, FlexoCal™, and Hybrid Screening. System platforms include Macintosh and Windows NT. Support multiple output devices. Visit www.artwork-systems.com J Creo Creo offers everything you need to deliver high-impact packaging: from creative software tools, superior scanners, and scalable production workflow solutions, to proofing options and proven, reliable output devices. Now you can go

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

These products and companies were the most sought-after in 2002 by packagePRINTING readers. Top 10: Prepress Equipment 1. Creo—PDF-based packaging workflow Prinergy Powerpack, copydot scanning systems, film imagers, and CtP devices 2. Agfa—Workflow and color management systems including the AgfaScan XY-15 Plus, Sherpa 43 Inkjet system, and Lithostar plates 3. Kodak Polychrome Graphics—Offers Digital and conventional plates, film, and proofing and color technologies including the Kodak Approval XP unit 4. BASF—Offers Nyloflex® and Nyloprint® equipment combinations for processing photopolymer flexo and letterpress plates and sleeves 5. MacDermid—Broad range of sheet, liquid, digital, and water-wash photopolymer plates, platemaking equipment, sleeves,

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,

Flexo plate costs aren't likely to decrease dramatically until platemaking production is made fully digital. by Jessica Millward, Associate Editor PLATE EVOLUTION WILL always set the stage for further development of flexographic printing. But with the invention and advancement of "newer, better" systems and materials, inevitably comes the demand for "cheaper." Unfortunately, as plate manufacturers and prepress providers alike testify, a dramatic decrease in flexo plate prices won't be feasible until processing and production become substantially more simplified. Better conventional plate processing There are various methods for improving efficiency within the flexo platemaking process as it exists today. A primary cost-reduction strategy involves

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

What products and companies were most sought-after in 2001 by packagePRINTING readers? Here's the scoop on the year's most-wanted technologies, ranked below based on responses to both editorial features and display advertising.*** TOP 10: Prepress Equipment 1. Anderson & Vreeland—Photopolymer plate processing systems, rubber plate molding presses, flexo platemaking materials, digital imaging systems and software 2. DuPont Cyrel—Photopolymer plate and prepress systems, including Cyrel FAST thermal technology 3. BASF—Nyloflex® and nyloprint® equipment combinations for processing flexo and letterpress plates and sleeves 4. MacDermid—Sheet, liquid, digital, and water-wash photopolymer plates, platemaking equipment, sleeves, and plate mounting systems for flexo printing 5. CreoScitex—PDF-based packaging

At prepress trade shop Southern Graphic Systems, "to measure is to know." by Terri McConnell, Prepress Editor Last December, I was tickled to see Denny McGee—a man named one of the 1990s' "ten most influential people in the packaging industry"—address a room full of his peers with a giant piece of cheese on his head. McGee, hosting the Educator Seminar Series, was playfully hammering home the point that someone has been messing around with the printing food chain. Markets are moving, demands are changing, and we can't expect to find our profits in the same place we found them yesterday. No single group of