Presstek Inc.

The team at Fontana/Affiliated had already incorporated waterless offset printing and moved to a new facility. The next logical step was waterless CTP. BY CHRISTOPHER CORNELL Waterless? The team at Cheverly, MD-based Fontana Lithograph/Affiliated Graphics knows a number of different meanings for the word "waterless." That word could be used to describe just one of the problems the printer had to overcome as it built its new facility here. Through a revitalization project with the state of Maryland in December 1997, Fontana/Affiliated took ownership of a condemned property, which was nothing more than a slab with a leaking roof and three walls, that had

What's the latest technological perks to thermal platesetting? What is the hot news on thermal consumables? What recent thermal purchases are fueling CTP? What's the current talk on thermal? Here are hot bytes on the hottest developments. BY MARIE RANOIA ALONSO Thermal innovator Creo Products and Heidelberg Prepress report the installation of the 1,000th CTP system at Holland, MI-based Steketee-Van Huis. SVH recently took delivery of its new Trendsetter Spectrum 3244 digital halftone proofing system. The installation of the thermal Spectrum marks the 1,000th digital CTP system implemented by Creo and Heidelberg. Of the 1,000 installs, roughly 900 have been thermal. At Steketee-Van Huis, the Trendsetter Spectrum

As computer-to-plate grows in popularity and application, prepress officials and technology providers trade outlooks on CTP's hottest issues—especially the true commercial availability of thermal plates. What's better—thermal or non-thermal? Warning: They tell it like it is. BY MARIE RANOIA ALONSO Is the jury still out on the long-term merits of thermal imaging—and the consumables considerations any reasonable prepress director must labor over when deliberating which output device to recommend, thermal or non-thermal? For one, Maureen Richards, prepress technical director at United Lithograph, now a Mail-Well company, has her thermal reservations. "The current thermal technology is not 'utopia,' but I am perhaps biased by

Digital front ends are growing in flexibility and functionality, allowing for greater output opportunities, especially in areas of digital color proofing. Are DFEs where they need to be—technically speaking? Most are headed in the right direction, thanks to the promise of PDF. BY MARIE RANOIA ALONSO The success of any print production process—whether it is direct-to-film, direct-to-plate or imposition proofing—relies fully on the competence of the digital front end in question. Digital front ends, or DFEs—rich in providing controls for color management, PDF support and a host of in-RIP capabilities, including trapping—are taking the front end to higher levels of sophistication. What is a

Technological strides in areas of digital prepress, plus new moves in digital color printing, will push for strong attention this year. Are commercial printers ready for the next wave of techno-hype? Time will tell. BY MARIE RANOIA ALONSO Tired of hearing about thermal CTP? Bored with PDF discussions? Less than enthralled with the latest digital color proofing claims? Too bad—the next wave of PDF functionality, digital front-end output flexibility, thermal CTP strides and competitive advancements in digital color proofing devices are poised to make 1999 another hot year for digital developments. Still, hearing the tech talk isn't always easy, as many a prepress director

GRAPH EXPO 98 and CONVERTING EXPO 98 was a hot ticket—sales were robust, booth traffic was brisk, technology advancements fierce and cooperative announcements healthy. BY MARIE RANOIA ALONSO Question pondered: Could GRAPH EXPO 98 be a "Show of Shows," when the international spectacles that were IPEX 98 and PRINT 97 captured the printing industry's collective practically within the same 12-month span, with IPEX in September and PRINT 97 the previous September? Does $108 million answer that? That's the figure Heidelberg reported it registered during the show's four-day tour of Chicago's McCormick Place recently. Heidelberg's success was not singular. Scores of the show's more than

The teeming class of digital color presses seems to be on the verge of a graduation of sorts. Xeikon celebrated the shipment of its 1,000th digital color press earlier this year, a DCP/32D. Indigo reports well over 1,000 E-Print shipments globally. Xerox boasts more than 4,000 DocuColor 40 units installed worldwide. Heidelberg's Quickmaster DI continues to flood the market. All this is happening just as Agfa's variable printing Chromapress and the Scitex/KBA-Planeta Karat continue to push the technology forward. But that doesn't mean new classmates, like Screen's recently launched TruePress and the Quickmaster's big brother, the new Speedmaster 74 DI, aren't ready to

That is the (killer) question... BY CHERYL A. ADAMS "It's not really a matter of ROI, but RIB—remain in business," contends Maureen Richards, technical director of prepress at United Lithograph, in Somerville, MA. (She attributes the RIB acronym to an article she saw.) "There are a lot of efficiencies that can easily justify the ROI on CTP, but the ability to do a quick fix when customers want to make last-minute changes is what makes CTP so valuable. You're able to make those changes and still be on press within moments of deadline. CTP gives you optimum control of the prepress process." Customers

BY MARIE RANOIA ALONSO As the platesetter market matures, more fully automated and semiautomated devices, perhaps more than the market can sustain, are redefining the role of platemaking to meet the demands of the CTP environment. Thermal imaging technology, functionality to support Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF) and PostScript 3 availability now join reliability and throughput as inherent traits of many of today's new platesetter launches. To prepare for new platesetter launches on the horizon later this year, Printing Impressions offers a portfolio of devices and checks in with the technology providers poised to take them to market. Whether plug-and-play platesetting solutions, thermal

BY MARIE RANOIA ALONSO Color management systems, woven into digital proofing devices, are trying to deliver—and some argue are now delivering—effective, repeatable digital bluelines. Up-and-coming models for standardization, from commonly used International Color Consortium (ICC) profiles to new initiatives from the General Requirements for Applications in Commercial Offset Lithography (GRACoL), are refining the color delivery potential of the digital proofer. To better gain a proof positive perspective on the performance of color in today's digital proofing environment and what the market has and will soon have to offer, Printing Impressions polled a sampling of technology providers. On a company by company basis,