CTP Make an Informed Decision

Trends to Watch

Some key developing trends to watch in 2006:

1. Watch for the differences (price of equipment and consumables, speed and image quality) between thermal and photopolymer to shrink even further.

2. The two main imaging technologies will remain thermal and violet light. At the moment, violet is gaining some real traction in the small to mid-size shops, because of the lower equipment cost than thermal systems. Ray Cassino, director of Prepress Product Management at Heidelberg explains it this way: "Violet machines are based on internal drums, while thermal-based systems are external drums. Violet systems have 40 percent less moving parts; we know, we make both. So violet offers a significant price advantage to manufacture and a lower selling price for the equipment over comparable thermal systems. And there's no significant difference between violet and thermal plate costs. So at this point, the trend among a lot of smaller print shops is toward the violet technology."