Computer-to-Plate — Digital Plate Developments

Phoenix is somewhat of an atypical reduced process plate user, since the technology currently tends to favored by smaller shops. It has three 40? sheetfed presses with six or more colors and has seen its average press run jump to 40,000 or 50,000 impressions in recent months.

The shop has always been environmentally sensitive, but Richards says that benefit was secondary to making its prepress processes overwhelmingly better than they were before. The same two Creo Spectrum Trendsetters are used to expose the new plates, but the imaging time has about doubled, he notes. “But, now we just image a plate and put it through a rinse. We get a press-ready plate in about half the time as before. We’re saving both time and the cost of chemistry.”