Scratch The Film. Go Straight To Plate

The Xanté 8200 Platemaker and PlateMaker 3 image polyester plates.

"We haven't used metal plates in a long time," he notes, referring to the days when his shop used a dark room.

Burke says the best reason to use polyester plates is the price.

"The polyester plates we use are something like 80 cents each. That's a little more than what you can get them for, but we want to stick with Xanté plates because if we need service we don't want them to be able to say the problem is 'You're using the wrong plates,' " he says.