CTP and digitization
Driven by the pre-press digital revolution, China's printing industry has entered a period of rapid development since the late 1990s. The development of this digital concept that will overturn the traditional printing production methods has already covered all fields of the printing industry. In this storm, which is hailed as "a storm that changes the fate of China's printing," the prepress platemaking field was pushed to the cusp of the digital revolution as a pioneer, and thus became the best for various emerging technologies and production concepts and various types of new equipment. Appearance and competition arena. Among the many new prepress equipment, the most outstanding performance is the computer direct plate making (CTP) equipment which integrates "information digitization, production standardization, and management systematization". The equipment has become a hot spot for many manufacturers to invest with its advantages of "high-tech, high-quality, high-efficiency", and once became the symbol of first-class printing enterprises and synonymous with pre-press digitalization.
But does having a CTP mean really having digitization?
With the development of CTP technology, people found that the answer is uncertain. Numerous unsuccessful purchase cases have repeatedly proved the same truth to people, that is: the simple introduction of CTP equipment is of little significance to achieve simple and efficient digital production; only to integrate the performance of the equipment with the production advantages and characteristics of the enterprise In order to maximize the effectiveness of CTP equipment.
What is the difference between CTcP and CTP? What kind of prepress equipment best reflects the advantages of digital production? So far, pre-press computer plate-making equipment is divided into two categories: ordinary CTP and CTcP. Although both processes save the film-making process and all use digital information to realize the "one-press production-data transmission-direct platemaking" one-stop operation, from the perspective of technical characteristics and actual process implementation, CTP and CTcP There is a big difference. CTcP is the extension and development of CTP.
Difference 1: The most essential difference between CTcP and CTP is that the exposure materials used by the two are different.
CTcP images digital information on ordinary PS plates, while CTP images digital information on special CTP plates coated with special photosensitive layers.
As we all know, "Things are rare". Because the CTP laser light source has very strict requirements on the wavelength and the range of the photosensitive wavelength is very narrow, the imaging exposure of the CTP has extremely high requirements on the photosensitive layer of the plate. The corresponding coating process and production cost of CTP plates are therefore much more cumbersome and expensive than the common PS plates that have been popularized earlier. The biggest headache for the printing company's purchasing staff is that CTP plates are not only expensive but also scarce. Only products from a few imported plate materials suppliers such as Agfa, Kodak Polylight, and Fuji Starlight are available. Not only are domestic brands rare, but the indexes and performance of the plates are also far from the imported ones, and cannot meet the requirements of normal printing.
Printing operators who are familiar with production know what it means for each plate in printing production to be half or even twice as expensive as the original. If a PS version is 35 yuan and a CTP version is 70 yuan, a small and medium-sized printing company with an annual version of 20,000 square meters will lose 700,000 yuan in profit a year. Although CTP can also bring a lot of potential economic benefits for enterprises, in the face of such a clear cost gap, no matter how many advantages are pale.
Difference 2: CTcP and CTP have different exposure technologies.
Whether it is a CTcP device or a CTP device, exposure technology is the core content. It is not only related to the quality of exposure imaging, but also closely related to the life of the equipment. The structure and movement state of the exposure head directly affect the repair and maintenance of the equipment in daily use.
CTcP uses a short-arc ultraviolet high-pressure mercury lamp as the exposure light source, and completes the entire platform exposure operation through digital dot imaging technology and magnetic levitation drive.
Its exposure head consists of two parts: one part is a high-precision optical element; the other part is a modern electronic sensing device that controls and detects the exposure imaging. The device can automatically adjust the height of the exposure head according to the unevenness of the printing plate surface, thereby ensuring the exposure quality. Compared with the CTP equipment that uses laser as the light source, the maintenance of the CTcP exposure head is more convenient and easy; replacement of the light source does not require professionals, and ordinary operators can complete it. The magnetic levitation drive technology without mechanical wear not only reduces the accuracy error of the entire equipment to a minimum, but also greatly reduces the probability of equipment failure, providing a solid guarantee for creating high-quality products. This advantage is not available in CTP equipment, because the long-term transmission of the machinery used every day will definitely cause wear, which is unavoidable in any case.
Difference 3: The performance of the fusion of CTcP, CTP and printing process is different.
The ultimate purpose of plate-making is to print, and then the advanced plate-making method only has practical value if it is smoothly combined with the printing process.
Although both CTcP equipment and CTP equipment can be integrated into the printing process, the requirements and results of the two are completely different.
The coating substance of the CTP plate material is very different from that of the ordinary PS plate, which leads to a great difference between the printing suitability in the printing process and that of the ordinary PS plate. The water-ink balance of the plate, the pressure of the printing press, the pH of the chemical solution, and the environment around the printing press must be readjusted and tested in actual printing. Practice has proved that this is a relatively long and complicated change process for both operators of presses and managers. The replacement of various printing parameters increases the difficulty of the rapid integration of CTP and printing processes, resulting in longer time for companies to recover investment costs and generate economic benefits.
CTcP has outstanding advantages in the integration with the printing process. The consistency of the plate material ensures the normal operation of various printability. Printing companies do not need to worry about the problems caused by changes in printing suitability, and they do not need to spend a lot of time and energy to complete the matching work between plates and printing machines. The relatively stable printing parameters enable the plate-making process and the printing process to be integrated in a very short time and produce economic benefits. [next]
CTcP: Take into account both technological progress and benefit improvement
Real digital production should not only have high-tech content, but also create tangible economic benefits for enterprises; truly effective digital equipment should perfectly integrate technological progress and efficiency improvement. It is not difficult to see from the above analysis that CTcP is such a digital plate-making equipment that takes into account both technological progress and improved efficiency. The difference between it and CTP equipment is exactly why it is superior to CTP equipment.
In addition, CTcP also has the advantages of all digital plate-making equipment.
Advantage one: excellent imaging quality
The CTcP technology uses square pixel imaging, with clear and sharp dot edges. It can reproduce the tone and gradation of an image with a diameter of 17μm and a screen with 200 lines / inch screen. It can also screen 250 lines / inch well. Copy of the image.
The German neutral printing research organization FOGRA has tested the dot reducibility of CTcP, thermal CTP, photopolymer CTP, and silver salt CTP. The results show that these technologies have significant differences in platemaking quality. CTcP once again proves that the traditional offset printing plate has superior exposure performance and printing quality.
The test report also proves that the CTcP system has high replication accuracy, and the positioning error between each exposure unit is kept within ± 2 μm.
Advantage two: perfect workflow
With regard to the configuration of the work flow, the CTcP system has formulated three schemes with the goal of providing help to as many users as possible to meet the needs of various users.
(1) Post-RIP solution: This process integrates the mainstream technologies of the pre-press process "RIP post-layout" and "RIP one-time proofing". It is an open and reliable digital pre-press solution.
(2) Nexus solution: It is a compatible and high-quality workflow, suitable for users whose most work is packaging and labeling.
(3) Odystar program: It is a particularly reliable and open to all pre-press and publishing printing workflows, which can be easily integrated with third-party products in the workflow; especially suitable for commercial printing.
Advantage three: easily compatible with other prepress systems
All UV-Setter series CTcP platesetters are equipped with an open 1-bitTiff interface. No matter what kind of equipment and workflow, as long as the output file is in 1-bitTiff format, it can be perfectly integrated with the CTcP plate-making machine. This has created good conditions for the smooth transition from the traditional film platemaking process to the digital direct platemaking process. Because the plate material remains unchanged, and the phototype output uses the 1-bitTiff file format, so in the early stages of production, users can implement both traditional platemaking and digital direct platemaking dual-line operations to ensure a smooth transition of new technologies. For printing companies, this means that operators can quickly and easily implement the digital platemaking process without additional investment. In addition, the simple equipment and open workflow have more advantages for future maintenance and upgrades.
Advantage four: platform-type exposure structure and flexible format
For printing plants, the variable exposure format has solved the problems of single applicability and inconvenience of digital plate-making machines due to the inconsistency of printing machine models. The platform-like structure has unparalleled advantages over other exposure structures for the edition. For the missing layout, it does not have to be like other CTP, it needs to passively wait for all the pages to be in order to be exposed, but can expose the existing pages through the missing pages, and finally fill the exposure after the vacant file arrives. Save time and effort.
Advantage five: bright room operation
Since the conventional PS plate material does not normally sensitize visible light, users can safely complete the plate-making work in the bright room environment.
The UV-Setter series CTcP plate-making machine produced by Besin has 5 series (four-frame format), 7 series (half-frame format), 11 series (full-frame format) and N series (newspaper type) manual, semi-automatic and Various models such as fully automatic are available for users to choose. Among them, the maximum publishing speed of the 7 series folio format can reach 20 sheets / hour; the highest publishing speed of the N series newspaper industry can reach 120 sheets / hour.
Whether it is technical, technological or economic, CTcP is unique among many CTP products, and has great advantages and competitiveness.
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