Cases of CTP use

The CTP system has absolute advantages in four aspects. It can remove the middle expensive film step, shorten production time, greatly reduce the difference between proofing and printing, and bring higher quality.

Cutting costs

For book publishers who produce a large number of pages, removing the process for making the film is an important advantage. “One of our customers spends more than 15,000 deutsche marks per year on the film. Since the company installed Agfa’s Galileo system, this customer has saved these costs and this customer has saved these costs. There is no need to make any changes to the print,” said Mr. Wolff.

Although the time saved may eventually return to customers, customers always want to postpone the deadline for submission as much as possible. This is where Galileo, a high-volume producer, plays a major role. It can output 20 plates per hour.

“As far as printing plate output speeds are concerned, our standard is different from that of a printing factory. As a service provider, DPS must be able to hand over the exposed plates quickly and efficiently, while the printers are printing the plates onto the printing. On-board, then there will be plenty of time for the next printing plate to be exposed during printing. The bottleneck in the printing room is usually not in the CTP system but in the printing press itself."

The predictability of the Galileo system is very high, and Mr. Wolff said: “I can know exactly how many plates we can produce in a certain period of time and how the system is going.”

"Our RIP processes eight pages faster than Unix processes a single page. The rasterized bitmaps are stored on the server and can be re-exposed when needed."




DPS public workflow, from Mac to Galileo platesetter and
Lithostar plates eliminate the often-occurring mistakes of repeated exposures.

The same proofing

“The proofs made with our HP printer must match the results printed with the CTP plate and are generated from the same file. This is very important for our CTP service provider. We have adopted love. Kefa's system makes the proofing and printing plate effect the same, this feature is not found in other CTP systems.

Higher quality

Mr. Wolff had already expected that there would be some skeptics at the beginning of the press package, but they soon gained the same confidence because of the high quality of the CTP system. Mr. Wolff cited some of the benefits of printing plates: "Printers are The Lithostar plate is easy to handle, with precise positioning, high dot stability and faster inking."

Thanks to the Apogee PrintDrive, when the plate needs to be rebuilt, the data need not be rasterized again. This eliminates the mistakes that often occur when repetitive exposures are performed, which is good for both quality and throughput. When the printer needs to reprint, DPS does not need to make another set of proofing for the customer to confirm.

In addition, the company can easily store the final plate data for customers for at least one week. In fact, data can be stored for two weeks or even longer until all print jobs have been completed. This is just a matter of storage capacity.

Mr. Wolff added: "The production of the printing plate should be as simple and convenient as the film exposure. Now, we set up the data on the screen, then check the proofing, hand it over to the customer and arrange the printing. After that, the system is like a new type of image. As with the output machine, automatic, non-initiative completion of the work ensures that stable and high-quality printing plates are produced.