Electrographic Plates

Electrographic devices are the ultimate in simplicity. Similar to a laser printer, these devices deposit toner onto a substrate via a charged imaging drum. A special ink-receptive toner enables offset printing, but many devices can also serve as high-resolution laser printers. Manufacturers offering such devices include Printware (St. Paul, MN). The Printware 1440 can image both inexpensive “paper” plates as well as the more durable organic photoconductor (OPC) aluminum plates. In addition to being daylight safe, both options offer the advantage of being totally processless — when the plates emerge from the laser printer, they are ready to hang and run.

Xante's (Mobile, AL) recently introduced Platemaker 4 is its latest device for electrographic CTP, and extends the legacy of its workhorse Platemaker 3.

Xante users can choose between the Myriad 2 (a dry-toner plate with a polyester substrate) and the Myriad 4, which has a paper substrate.

“We made the decision to purchase the Platemaker 4 based on the positive experience we've had with Xante products,” says Floyd Black, president of Personalized Printing (Carrollton, TX). “In four years of operation, there's never been a moment of downtime on our Platemaker 3.”

Personalized Printing doesn't rely exclusively on paper plates. According to Black, it's easy for press operators to switch between aluminum plates and plates output from the Xante platemaker. “Our press operators print the jobs in the order they were received,” says the exec. “All day long, they go from Myriad 2 to metal and back, so they aren't forced to separate the paper-plate jobs from those running on metal plates.”

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Computer-to-Plate (CTP)

In the Computer-to-Plate or CTP process the image of the page from a digital files recorded directly from the file to the printing plate instead of creating film and making the plate from the film. Although CTP is a printing process, in order to insure the best possible output it is important that the designer discuss CTP with their printer. The printer's familiarity with the process, their equipment, the type of plates, and file format and preparation all play a role in the success of the computer-to-plate process.

When you eliminate film in favor of bits and bytes, your digital infrastructure must be able to keep up with production. You'll need up-to-date hardware and software and an internal workflow designed to avoid production bottlenecks. Most printers will require one or more digital proofing devices, as well as upgraded desktop publishing workstations, networks, scanning capabilities and archiving procedures.

Until recently, printers implementing low-cost CTP solutions might have opted for dye-sublimation or phase-change proofing devices; today, nearly every new CTP installation features some form of inkjet proofing. While inkjet has won broad acceptance for its strong price/performance balance, remember that not all devices are equally adept at creating contract-quality color proofs and outputting press-sheet-size imposition proofs.

• The direct-to-plate process, known as CTP (computer-to-plate), has eliminated the film output step of plate-making. Printing plates are now made directly from computer files with the use of lasers.

Eliminating the need for film means less cost to you

as well as a reduction in turnaround time.

• In the CTP process, the computer file used to make hi-resolution colour proofs for your job is the same file used to produce the printing plates for the press. This generally eliminates problems such as font or image variations between proof approval and the printed job.

• Another more important benefit of the CTP process is the quality of the “dot” that is achieved on new plate system. The direct-to-plate dots are now sharper and have less “dot-gain” than the traditional film-to-plate process.

• Craigs Platesetter constantly delivers high quality plates for printing presses. The accuracy of the plates enables shorter make-readies and the enhanced dot definition results in superbly sharp print quality.

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SPOT COLOURS INKS (sheet fed offset inks)

Matchings

Special shades matched against printed specimen or wet sample.
Matched and Manufactured at our various Mixing & Matching Centres which are equipped with with trained colour matchers and colour matching facilities.

Unitone

Universally accepted colour system developed by adapting the Pantone Colour Matching System (PMS) - 14 Basic Colour + Transparent White

Colorama
Standard range of High Quality Spot/Cut colours.Widely accepted by printers.
Some of the very popular Spot Colours Inks shades are:


Baby Offset
Standard Range of Economy Spot Colours Inks: Specially formulated for Small/Baby Offset Machines.


NOTE:
The colors shown above are only approximations of the ink colors available. Colors that you see via the World-Wide Web may differ based on a variety of factors - the amount of colors enabled by your display in your monitor's settings, your monitor's resolution, your operating system, the specific Web browser you are using, dithering color palettes, etc.

Color in the print publishing world works very differently. A color is not relative, it is absolute, and always prints in the same hue (although it may appear differently when printed on a variety of different media).

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