Agfa, Basys Print, Creo, Escher-Grad, Fujifilm, Kodak Polychrome Graphics, Luscher, PISCES, Presstek, Screen Andrew Tribute One goal in preparing cutting edge, premium content for our members is to seek out unique views on hot topics. When Andrew Tribute informed us of his review of IPEX, we knew portions would need to be easily accessible for our premium access members. Andrew Tribute is one of the industry’s most well-known and respected writers. He has published a very impressive review of the IPEX event held in England. In a special arrangement, we wanted to share his specific views on the Computer to Plate vendors. Please offer feedback to Andrew via email: [email protected] May 7, 2002 -- Digital technology in computer to plate imaging is in a constant state of development, and IPEX showed this. This technology has now been around some time, and an increasing amount of printers have started to use it, particularly the large commercial printers. The majority of printers however have not and so there are still very major opportunities for sales. Before IPEX it appeared this was going to be a battle of the thermal imagers against the new lower cost violet diode visible light devices. It was, but it was also more than that. In the thermal area the major event was that Creo is now just another supplier. Its machines are now no better than those of its competitors, and in fact one can say that it has been overtaken. New announcements from Agfa and Screen were the highlights in challenging Creo, but the Swiss organization Luscher also was showing challenging products. With Agfa and Screen, they are both utilizing a new technology called Grating Light Valve for generating the multiple imaging beams required for high-speed thermal imaging. This is a technology developed by Silicon Light Machines and is a small silicon chip with 1,080 minuscule ribbons that can be switched at ultra high speed to generate and deflect a large number of laser beams. Agfa and Screen have been working with Silicon Light Machines for a number of years to develop their imaging heads using this technology, and have exclusive use of the technology for the plate imaging market. Agfa has gone for an implementation with 240 imaging beams and is initially targeting the 8-page format market with its Xcaliber 45. Screen is going for a more ambitious and complex implementation with 512 beams and is using two heads in its Platerite Ultima VLF platesetter. Both companies are currently running the imaging drum at a relatively slow rotational speed, but the technology allows for significantly faster imaging in the future. It will be interesting to see in future if Screen uses this technology in the 4, 6 and 8 page format Platerite devices, and Agfa uses the technology in the Xcaliber VLF unit. These devices currently use multiple individual diodes to create the multiple beams used for imaging. Creo was not putting any emphasis on the performance of its devices, not surprisingly since other vendors now have faster units. Instead they were emphasizing the quality aspects of their systems through their Square Spot imaging accuracy and its use within the Staccato FM screening. This, they stated, was allowing users to produce higher quality printing with less complex set ups and using in many cases less ink. The benefits were being seen in better printing. Thermal imaging, they stated, allowed for very fine dot sizes in FM screening that could not be achieved by other imaging technologies. They were also saying that they were now introducing Staccato with dot sizes of 10 micron, to go with their established 20 and 30 micron versions. They did point out that 10 micron required very specific validation of the plates, processing etc, and was not suited for everyone. I would say the results are brilliant but really only appropriate for a tiny proportion of the market. It is almost photographic like in quality, but requires very smooth papers, and is really an art book type of work. I would imagine only a tiny proportion of clients would go for this, and most would very happily settle for the 20 micron work. I think we may be moving back into the battle of the screening technologies. Staccato looks very good, but then so do other screening implementations of special screening from a number of suppliers. Certainly a choice of screening technology should be one of the factors considered in a CtP decision. My feeling is that whatever high quality CtP device and whatever imaging technology is chosen, that the new screening approaches from many of the suppliers will show real improvements in the press room. In the thermal imaging area there was still talk of process free plates, but we have been hearing that now for some five years. Precious few have as yet come to market. There are plans from a number of suppliers for different types of plate but as yet only Presstek and Agfa have plates in commercial availability. Amos Michelson, Creo’s CEO and the strongest of the thermal only advocates, states that switchable polymer process free plates are less expensive to manufacture than any other plate technology. In theory this may well be true, but theory and market forces seldom work in the same way. Until there are multiple suppliers of such plates, and a huge number of platesetters requiring them, prices will stay at up. As yet, there is no significant demand for process free plates in the market (see the Presstek share price), and there is a major growth in the supply of conventional printing plates. Michelson’s projections on plate prices are purely theoretical and unlikely to come true in the market for a very long period of time. Jeff Jacobson the CEO of Kodak Polychrome Graphics stated that if printers adopted visible light imaging CtP units they were locking themselves out of the future as process free plates could only be imaged by thermal devices. This is nearly correct and a valid point, but perhaps Mr Jacobson does not know his own products. Basys Print, using their standard UVSetters can image the KPG DirectPrint printing plate which is processed on press using the press’s fount solution. In the violet diode visible light area, an increasing number of devices are now available, and their prices are usually substantially lower than the thermal units. The reason for this is that the imaging technology of a simple internal drum or flatbed engine is cheaper to build than an external drum engine. The single beam imaging and very low cost light source are also very substantially cheaper than a multiple beam high laser cost thermal head. Thermal devices, in their current implementations, are just far more expensive to build than violet diode imaging devices. The fastest commercial platesetter today is a violet diode unit from Fujifilm, whereas Escher-Grad is selling their units at almost polyester platesetter prices. The key however, for this market is plates and Fuji, Mitsubishi Paper Mills and the enlarged Lastra, which has acquired Western Litho, now join Agfa here. To show that this market is now very important I was told by Jeff Jacobson, CEO of Kodak Polychrome Graphics, that they would also be entering this market in the future with a plate. KPG up to now had a thermal only policy. This is very important as it shows that violet diode imaging in CtP has come of age and will grow substantially as every major plate supplier will be competing in this area. Up to now Agfa has been the one act in town. At the bottom end of the market in terms of price, PISCES with its innovative “Liquid Light” technology using an ink jet printer to image the plate was creating great interest. This looks like opening up another access to CtP for the smaller printer. We can see major enhancements in this technology in the next twelve months as Pisces implements the more recent Epson ink jet technology with its far smaller ink drop size and faster drop generation from multiple heads. This will allow for high screen values more suited for quality commercial printing. I can see this will become a serious lower cost competitor to violet diode and thermal imaging in the four, six and eight page format markets when for example devices like the Epson Stylus 10000 wide measure device may be used with “Liquid Light” technology. Pisces is currently running as fast as it can to keep up with both interest and demand. It was interesting to note the number of executives from major plate suppliers showing a real interest in this technology as a means of imaging their conventional plates. Pisces is one example of computer to conventional plate imaging, and it does now appear that imaging of conventional plates rather than dedicated a digital CtP plate is finally happening. Basys Print introduced new models of its units and these are now as fast as machines imaging digital plates. The benefits of imaging conventional plates are mainly seen in cost savings and Basys was showing projections of savings over other CtP technologies on a plate usage of 10,000 sq. metres (approx 100,000 sq.ft) per year of around $275,000 over five years. Admittedly the prices used in making this comparison were supplier’s list prices of CtP plates, whereas most major users pay well under these prices, so the comparison while valid is somewhat too advantageous in terms of Basys. Basys has now been offering imaging of conventional plates for over five years but has still only around 250 installations. IPEX heralded the arrival of one of the larger CtP players into this market. This is EskoGraphics, the company formed by the merger of Purup-Eskofot and Barco Graphics. Their new Dicon, which could be in the market in 2003, could be the real breakthrough product to make imaging of conventional plates a major factor in the market. The demonstrations of Dicon were to invited attendees only in a closed room, so few attendees really got to see this demonstration. Even if you did there was little really to see apart from a large box with a processor attached to it, and out of the end of the processor came an Agfa Zenith 550 plate duly imaged. The quality of the image looked good at a resolution of 1,270 dpi. I was lucky to be shown under terms of non-disclosure how the imaging technology worked. All I can say is that it is changed from what was shown at drupa as a concept machine, and that I believe it has the potential to go even faster than is being quoted, and also that it has the potential to be used in a full range of imaging units from the lower cost small format to the very high performance newspaper and large format devices. Basys and EskoGraphics are not the only companies in the imaging of conventional plates. Escher-Grad also has a product built using the same platform as its Cobalt8 platesetter but using a 2 Watt Coherent UV laser as the light source. This converts a violet diode platesetter costing under $100,000 to a UV platesetter costing around $300,000. There is also a degradation in performance. Escher-Grad has limited sales expectation for the product. It also shows why the other two suppliers are using a UV lamp rather than a laser. The lamp cost for example in the Basys units is $800. With the projections for sales of conventional plates still increasing, and being way in excess of CtP plates for many years to come, and with printers being a very conservative group of people that hate change, UV imaging of such plates may well be a very important factor in the growth of the CtP market. Andrew has also published his takes on digital printing, digital color proofing, direct imaging (DI) printing and workflow & integration. Examine these articles at his web site: http://www.attributes.co.uk/AttributesFrame.html