As we all know, the CTP process can bring many benefits for printing: excellent image quality, near-perfect calibration, and rapid production turnover. However, its advantages are not only due to the imaging equipment, but also depend on the quality and performance of CTP plates.

Here we will focus on several characteristics of the plate, see how they interact to assist the CTP equipment for digital plate making, thus affecting the image quality. This applies to all CTP plates, but is particularly suitable for thermal plates. At present, the global use of thermal plates has increased dramatically and has been recognized as the preferred medium for high-quality lithography.

Requirements for aluminum base

In traditional platemaking, whether or not a dot can be precisely positioned on a plate material depends to a large extent on whether the position of the imposition and positioning pin register device is accurate when using a vacuum pump or a continuous copy device. In any case, this requires the plate to be quite flat when laid flat, but due to the direct contact exposure method used in the imaging process, the entire process can accept changes in the surface flatness of various types of plates – and the change in the flatness of these surfaces is Caused by the aluminum surface treatment when producing traditional plates. However, because the digital printing plate is exposed by the energy gathered by the laser light source, the requirements for the flatness of the digital plate, including the aluminum surface treatment, are all more stringent.

In addition, the use of energy-focused imaging in contrast to direct imaging means that no visible streaks will be visible when imaging on digital plates because no streaks will occur during anodization and graining of aluminum plates.

Coating

When applied to digital plates, emulsions must be smooth, uniform, and free of defects. Because the dot size generated on the laser platemaking machine is very small, any dust in the air during the production process of the reel, no matter how tiny it is, falls on the plate, and it will lead to an artificial image point. In fact, irregular images due to static spots are also visible, and they are very small and can't even be seen by a magnifier that checks traditional printing plates.

The same uniformity requirement is also applied in the photosensitive coating of digital printing plate material. In general, when a traditional printing plate is exposed to ultraviolet light, it receives approximately 10,000 times the energy delivered to the digital printing plate coating by the laser system in a direct plate making apparatus. This means that in order to precisely meet the physical properties mentioned above, the emulsion coating of digital printing plates must be very stringent to achieve a specific range of spectral sensitization characteristics, satisfying the synthetic material (especially the molecular architecture in the coating), And the energy reaction is active. As a result, factories that produce digital printing plates require special, additional chemicals and also require special production workflows.

Operational requirements

Compared with traditional media, CTP media also require different modes of operation during handling. Because many digital media imaging uses the edge of the media as an important point of reference for calculating imaging positions. Digital media has very strict requirements for edge straightness and uniformity. Although this is only a minor issue for traditional media, if the digital media is not straight, smooth or damaged, the media will not work properly.

service

The final step in digital media production is to create and maintain a service team that can help printers solve problems anytime anywhere. This is a question that should be considered when evaluating any traditional and digital media, but it is especially important for digital media. Because printers that generally use CTP production are due to customers having a particularly strict time limit, this means that if problems arise, they must be resolved immediately.

to sum up

When comparing different digital plates or platemaking systems, it is worth noting that the final product was not sent to the printing plant for a stack of plates but rather the printing of precisely imaged plates on the printing press resulted in trouble-free printing. Printing products.

When considering the cost of producing digital plates, consider several important factors that have higher costs than traditional plates. The most important point is the demand for high quality raw materials. KPG's huge investment in the production of plates is to ensure stable and accurate media performance. KPG has been producing thermal plates for nearly 10 years and has been continuously researching and developing to make the plates superior in performance, faster in production, and higher in print force at high resolution. Customers of the global graphic arts industry endorsed KPG's efforts, and thermal technology is the technology of choice for printers using CTP systems. Thermal plates will provide users with accurate quality and stable high quality.