April 13, 2008 -- NEXPO 2008 attendees are among the first to be able to see the the newest violet digital plates from Agfa Graphics. Making its North America debut at NEXPO is Agfa’s :N92-V violet plate. Agfa’s innovative new :N92-VCF chemistry-free violet plate is also showing at Agfa’s booth. NEXPO is being held at the Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC through Tuesday, April 15.
Agfa is the leading digital plate supplier to the newspaper industry, and its next generation :N92-V violet laser plates incorporate violet photopolymer plate technology, offering improved run lengths combined with superior performance on press. The long-run, high-consistency, no-bake plate for newspaper printing applications builds on the proven, market-leading :N91v plate, offering improved run length, higher quality and new levels of performance.

Agfa's :N92-VCF chemistry-free non-ablative plates produce exceptionally strong image contrast, leave no on-press contamination even with press runs of 150,000, and work with low-power, reliable violet diodes. Newspapers that have already invested in violet CtP can easily move to the chemistry-free system. A modified regular processor or clean-out unit removes the non-imaged areas in one easy step. Press operators will find the plates easy to work with and almost identical to the plates they previously used.

"Thanks to their unbeatable speed, laser reliability, cost effectiveness and excellent image quality, many newspaper publishers have already invested in violet platesetters. As the desire to be more the environmentally responsible continues to grow, newspapers are also becoming more ecologically-aware," said Sheila Nysko, Agfa's business development director, Newspaper Systems, North America. "Agfa's violet chemistry-free plates are more environmentally sensitive, and they look, feel and behave like traditional plates and can run on most existing violet CtP devices."

"Agfa is already the leader in chemistry-free CtP with more than 2000 installations around the world and 80% of the market share. This extension into violet chemistry-free plates is the next logical step," added Nysko.

All NEXPO attendees are invited to come to the Agfa booth (#2110) to see these and other new products and services for newspaper prepress.