Finally, after many years of near start-ups, the process or chemistry free CtP printing plate market is starting up. Process and chemistry free printing plates are ones that as their name implies need no processing before going on press, or no processing with chemicals before going on press. For almost ten years we have heard announcements from various plate manufacturers of process free plate potential. At most trade shows over the past decade at least one plate supplier has shown a demonstration of process free plates, however in almost all cases such plates were still in a development mode. In the past year since drupa 2004 this situation has now changed substantially and there are now a number of suppliers shipping such plates, and a large number of good working installations that can prove the benefits of process or chemistry free working. Chemistry free incidentally is usually a water wash of the plate and perhaps a plate gumming process.

Actually, despite the somewhat negative wording above of the history of these plates, one supplier has been shipping chemistry free plates for many years. This supplier is Presstek, a company best known for supplying the imaging electronics and plate consumables for most D.I. presses in use. A D.I. press has to have no process or no chemistry plates, as the plate is imaged and prepared for printing on the press. In fact most plates for D.I. presses use a process of ablation to remove the surface of the plate exposing a silicon based substrate to allow for waterless printing. While such plates are fine for D.I. presses, they are not really what is wanted for conventional presses. Despite this Presstek has been making such ablative plates available for non-D.I. printing. The negative of this is they require a CtP device that has a dust extraction system to remove the ablated material (dust) that is blasted by laser exposure from the plate’s surface. Such platesetters are only available from Presstek, and Creo. Creo (now Kodak) does not actively offer this facility, preferring other options for process free plate working. Apart from the Pearl Dry plate used for D.I. printing, Presstek also offers its Anthem and Applause plates in the chemistry free area, however both use ablative technology for imaging.

In this D.I. market there are other suppliers of plates that are similar to Presstek’s Pearl Dry. Heidelberg has been shipping a plate under their Saphira brand made for them by Fuji. Heidelberg however have just signed a new contract with Presstek and it appears in future that the Presstek Pearl Dry plate will be supplied in future under the Saphira brand. Kodak (Creo) also supplies Clarus WL, a plate designed for imaging on D.I. presses. Agfa has also been shipping its Thermolite plate for certain D.I. presses that use Creo on-the-press imaging.