Gent (Belgium), October 15, 2006 – Esko, the market leader in packaging pre-production solutions, announces it will demonstrate its new, innovative DeskPack plug-ins for Adobe Illustrator at Graph Expo in booth 5268. DeskPack, a Scope software component turns Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop into full-featured production workstations for packaging design and pre-press. The DeskPack plug-ins are based on unique, patented technology developed by Esko. More than 6,000 licenses of DeskPack have been installed worldwide. DeskPack is extremely popular with designers, tradeshops and converters, because it adds packaging functionality to Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop, which is used to create more than 90% of all packaging designs. Keeping a packaging design as long as possible in the originating application improves reliability and flexibility; major benefits of modern packaging prepress workflow. 3-dX: unique and revolutionary three-dimensional editing DeskPack 3-dX takes design to a new level of precision and ease with the innovative ability to generate a virtual three-dimensional view of a package within the familiar operating environment of Adobe Illustrator. The plug-in facilitates 3D guidance to navigate through complex structural designs and automatically maintains a live link between 2D production and 3D design visualization. This facilitates a virtual view while building up the graphics, just as if the designer was holding the product in his or her hands. ImageX: translate embedded images into separate, externally linked images Adobe Illustrator files are often created and transferred with embedded images and drop shadows. After receiving these files, image editing is not possible because the image is not available as a separate graphic file. With imageX the operator selects such images, writes them to disk with an automatic feature that re-links them into the Adobe Illustrator file. Thus, images are available separately and can be edited with, for example, Adobe Photoshop. SeamlessX: step and repeat for gravure or flexo cylinder workflows Many specialty items such as gift-wraps, wallpaper, and printed upholstery are created with rotogravure and flexography in a repeating pattern—across and around the cylinder so that there is a continuous, seamless pattern produced as the cylinder rotates. After the original repeating graphic is created, it is stepped and repeated across a rectangular area the size of the cylinder. seamlessX is used to calculate the correct spacing and repeat numbers to properly wrap the graphic around the cylinder, assuring seamless, continuous output, all within Adobe Illustrator. ScreenX: multiple ruling, angle and screening support within a single separation Adobe Illustrator can only provide one set of screen parameters (angle, ruling, dot shape) per ink/separation. However, in packaging the use of mixed screens is quite common. With screenX you assign multiple rulings, angles and/or screen definitions—as well as specific dot gain compensations—to different design objects in a single separation. “The use of DeskPack extends the supply chain and brings consumer product companies, trade-shops and packaging converters more power in the design and production of packaging. Designing with a three-dimensional view on the desktop, or making a seamlessly repeating design inside Adobe Illustrator are very powerful tools that leave lot’s of room for operator creativity and ultimately put less pressure on the printer,” comments Jan De Roeck, Esko Marketing Director Packaging Software. ”By making available state-or-the art packaging technology on the most preferred desktop application for the graphic designer, the entire packaging production process becomes much more straightforward and efficient.”