Banishing Chemicals, Saving Time

Brian Wolfenden, director of Marketing Communications with Presstek, spoke with IPG about combining environmentally friendly methods with higher productivity: “One way to reduce both costs and time to market is to streamline plate production while at the same time improving print quality. As one example of this trend, Presstek has seen an increased interest in our chemistry-free computer-to-plate (CTP) and direct imaging (DI) press technologies, which contribute to the ability to deliver high quality, short-run color faster and at a competitive price.”

“Like commercial printers, in-plants are being asked for shorter print runs with tighter delivery times. What was once one run of 50,000 might be 10 customized runs of 5,000 today. To meet these demands efficiently, in-plants that still produce plates using film should implement CTP technologies, ideally one that eliminates chemistry from the plate-making process. Operations that use two-color presses to produce four-color work--and there are a lot of them--should investigate DI offset as an affordable way to introduce high quality four-color printing to their operation.”