While CtP has been around a long time first appearing in the 1980s, it did not really come into the spotlight until drupa 1995. At that time it shared the overall spotlight of technological advance with digital printing. 1995 was when thermal CtP from Kodak and Creo burst onto the scene and spoilt the launch parties of many new green light visible CtP systems. At the next two drupas in 2000 and 2004 there were many new CtP introductions in imaging engines and plates that kept CtP well in the spotlight. Today one could say that CtP has become a mature technology with a high level of take-up in the many parts of the world. Thermal CtP has become established as the technology of choice in most areas of commercial CtP with Dainippon Screen being the market leader as the CtP engine supplier both under its own name and through a large number of OEMs. Kodak has maintained its strong position. Neither of these two companies has really introduced improved technology, just larger and slightly faster versions of their CtP engines. Heidelberg's Suprasetter, the CtP engine with probably the most advanced thermal imaging technology has substantially increased its market position and it introduced a number of new larger and faster engines at drupa.

One interesting development has become apparent recently. In newspapers it appeared there was a technological divide with violet technology being the choice of European newspapers and thermal technology being the North American choice. What we are now seeing is a split in North America where the larger metro newspapers now appear to favor violet systems with their higher speeds. Krause appears to be the main beneficiary of this with a number of large orders recently. It has also taken a very large order recently in India.

Most of the activity in terms of new CtP engines at drupa was in the violet CtP space and much of this was probably to do with new chemistry free plates from Agfa and Fujifilm. These plates are mainly aimed at commercial printers but Agfa made one major sale of these to the Austrian newspaper printer Mediaprint Zeitungsdruckerei that replaced eight old Agfa Polaris green laser CtP engines with eleven Agfa Advantage platesetters. These platesetters will image the new Agfa N92VCF chemistry free plates. Is this the first large newspaper operation to go either process or chemistry free? Among new violet CtP engines were eight-page units from Highwater, FFEI and ECRM and new four and six page units from Krause and Dotline from Germany. There were also some new European CtP suppliers coming to the show with engines that could work in thermal or volet technology. A joint development between Laser Systems Hannover (LSH) and Colenta from Austria with their Revolution 4, and from Metoda Group in Italy with their CtpOptotec range. These two companies both introduced external drum CtP engines with the choice of imaging technologies. They even offer UV exposure technology but neither could define exactly how they were going to do this but CtpOptotec states it will be available in 1st quarter 2009. This unit also had a unique feature of an interchangeable drum to allow a switch from four to eight-page format.

In the CtP plate area there were also some other new developments. Toray were showing their new Innova waterless chemical free CtP plate. Konica Minolta introduced its new thermal plate the Duros HST plate and previewed their entry into the chemistry free violet plate area with the new Replica plate.

Perhaps the main change in CtP at drupa was the arrival of Chinese CtP. This is both in CtP engines and more significantly CtP plates. Most of these new plates are thermal but there are also violet plates. In the thermal area we have The Second Film Factory of Lucky Group with its Huaguang plate, the Thermax plate from DingKaiLong (Fujian) Printing Technology, and perhaps the leading one being the FitXtra and FiteCO process free plates from Xingraphics. In the violet area The Second Film Factory of Lucky Group with its Huaguang violet plate. There was also the Marathon thermal plate from ICG-Prepress in the Uk that was designed in the UK but manufactured in China. Escher-Grad are also introducing their own violet plate into all its markets and this plate is sourced from China. In terms of Chinese CtP engines CRON thermal CtP engines from Hangzhou Cron Machinery were being shown for both newspaper and commercial applications. Beijing Founder Electronics, the leading prepress supplier in China was showing its new Eagle CtP violet engine that it sources from FFEI.

I keep the best to last with my of my highlights of drupa. This is the arrival of process free CtP that is neither thermal or violet and needs no dedicated CtP engine. VIM Technologies from Israel a company that is headed up by one of the industry's great innovators Avigdor Bieber, previously who headed up Scitex's early imagesetter and CtP applications and then was responsible for the joint effort of Scitex and KBA with the Karat DI press, introduced its new eco friendly plates. These are plates that are 'imaged' on an Epson inkjet printer. We have had inkjet imaged plates before but these either needed subsequent processing or used proprietary fluids to image onto grained aluminum plates. The new VIM JT Direct Plate is avalable in 2009 as either a polyester or metal plate and is imaged using the standard ink in the inkjet printer. This means the same printer can produce both color proofs and plates. The unique aspect of the JT plate is the coating of the plate reacts with the ink to create a dry ink receptive and water repelling surface. The new plate is still under development but is expected to be available in early 2009. Print samples from the plate however looked good. VIM is also introducing DP-S a processless metal plate for waterless printing that can be imaged on any standard thermal platesetter.