Polyester Made Plausible

When interviewing printers for a newly released study on polyester plates, industry consultant William C. Lamparter encountered no shortage of closed minds on the subject.

"I'd call owners of mid-size, higher-end print shops and ask if they used or considered using polyester plates, and the immediate response was, 'You're kidding—we do quality work,' at which point they'd practically hang up on me," states Lamparter, principal of Waxhaw, N.C.-based PrintCom Consulting. "It was as if I'd insulted them."

PrintCom was commissioned by the Printing Industries of America's Graphic Arts Marketing Information Service (GAMIS) to prepare its study, Market Potential for Polyester Printing Plates: 2001-2005.

Documented improvements in today's polyester plates dispel outdated tales of plate stretch, inability to register, and plates that fly off the press because they would not properly lock up. Still, adoption of what Lamparter refers to as CtPoly—long categorized as "the poor man's computer-to-plate (CTP)," he says—continues to meet with resistance.

In fact, the GAMIS study concludes that despite the plates' proven suitability for a wide range of work on myriad presses and for most printed products—including those with halftones, screen tints, and heavy ink coverage—widespread misconceptions continue.

"A number of in-plant printers and small to mid-size commercial shops are successfully using polyester plates on press," reports Scott MacKenzie, marketing vice president for A.B. Dick Company, which has offered its DPM ["digital plate maker"] systems and MegaPro plates for more than five years.

MacKenzie adds, "We've placed about 2,000 units worldwide to date, mainly our 14x20" DPM 2340 units for portrait-format presses. Our new 2404 and 2508 systems can produce polyester plates for 20"-wide presses."

One supplier, D.A.A. International, says its polyester plates can be imaged in a laser printer or electrostatic copier.

Meanwhile, Lamparter asserts, "We tell higher-end printers, 'If you haven't even investigated polyester plates, you're making a mistake. Instead of spending $350,000 for metal platesetting, you can image CTP polyester plates in a used $50,000 imagesetter, with only a modest investment in processing equipment. Also, the plates' rated life of about 25,000 impressions handles most sheetfed runs, which range from 5,000 and 10,000, with a node at 8,000 copies."

Agfa-Gevaert and Mitsubishi Imaging Inc. are the industry's two major global suppliers of polyester plates. Agfa produces an analog plate, called the Supermaster Plus, and a year-and-a-half-old digital version, SetPrint Plus, designed for imagesetter use up to 20,000 impressions.

To enable customers to do cost-effective four-color applications, Agfa last year introduced its Phoenix family of four-up, internal-drum imagesetters specifically designed to accommodate not only film but polyester.

"Many customers are now upgrading from analog because they realize digital plates represent an economical alternative versus computer-to-metal and a metal platesetter," confirms Agfa marketing manager Dave Carey. "Also, polyester plates are less expensive."

Says Jeff Troll, director of marketing for Mitsubishi Imaging, which supplies analog and digital polyester and paper-based plates, turning pressroom operators on to polyester versus metal is a matter of actually having them handle a polyester plate.

"A polyester plate simply feels different in their hands, so they'll notice a few differences when they put it on press," explains Troll. "They don't have to clamp down a polyester plate as hard as one that is metal. If they do, they'll stretch it out a little bit and then have to loosen it up. In many cases, once they've used polyester and see how easy it is to work with, they don't want to go back to metal."

Troll says that Mitsubishi also wins over skeptics by showing them the significant labor savings of polyester versus metal. "For example, if one plate is damaged while running a four-color job, the press operator can just go back to the RIP, drag over one plate, and simply re-image that one plate," he explains. "If a metal plate gets damaged, typically all four plates have to be reshot from film so that everything registers."

He concludes, "If a press operator gets paid for the number of jobs produced, polyester is a definite advantage."

Among other encouraging signs of renewed vendor faith in polyester plates, Heidelberg is marketing its Cristala 12-mil polyester plate, designed to be exposed in its internal-drum Primesetter series of imagesetters, targeted at small to medium-size print shops. The 12-mil thickness is the same as that of aluminum plates, which eliminates the need for underpacking of press cylinders as is necessary for standard polyester plates that are four-, five-, or eight-mils thick.

The thicker plate allows printers to switch between polyester and metal plates with consistent packing, and, says the manufacturer, it offers better dimensional stability, overcoming lingering fears of stretching.

"Most of the activity for polyester plates is in the two-up format, with eight-mil product being used on our Quickmaster 46" press," reports Dennis Ryan, product marketing manager for Heidelberg Americas, Inc.'s prepress arm in Kennesaw, Ga. "But we're now seeing interest in larger formats, surprisingly even up to 40" presses."

Ryan predicts that in 2002, Heidelberg will sell 150 small-format CTP machines for use with polyester plates.

"I foresee tremendous growth in polyester plates," he says. "There definitely are printers using them for short-run, pleasing-color work. We don't promote top-quality color for polyester yet, but the registration is there for good color.

"We show prospects many printed samples that prove to them that even on a 28" press, they can run very good four-color work once they've gotten the right tack, sequence, dampening, and press chemistry," Ryan concludes.