CTP--The Digital DRUPA

Thermal CTP provides many benefits for the printer. The primary advantages are: improved daylight handling, plate functionality that is like that of conventional plates—requiring no special handling or press adjustments—and the potential for extremely high resolution.

Thermal CTP is the result of a rich research and development philosophy within Eastman Kodak Company combined with a keen strategic market view. Mike Rundle, Kodak Polychrome Graphics' worldwide project manager for CTP products, recalls, "The development of the thermal CTP plate shown at DRUPA 1995 was an outgrowth of Kodak's work on laser thermal imaging in the mid-1980s, which resulted in the introduction of the original Kodak Approval system at DRUPA 1990. Kodak continued to explore the applications of this technology. In fact, it was a retrofitted Approval laser-thermal printhead that allowed Dr. Neil Haley and Steven Corbiere to begin their work on thermally sensitive, digital printing plates."