Super Setters Warm Up CTP Field

In January, Agfa installed the first Xcalibur in North America at the Transmag Division of Transcontinental Printing, a large full-service coldset web printer in Anjou, Quebec, Canada. The 20-year-old Transmag Division employs 165 people and prints 80 titles (both commercial newspapers and weekly newspapers, including two dailies, The National Post and The Metro). The division utilizes six web offset presses, including Goss Urbanite and Harris webs.

Although the Transmag Division had been using a CreoScitex VLF Trendsetter since 1997, it was eager to field-test the Agfa Xcalibur.

"We had built our business to near-capacity with one CTP," says Pierre Manseau, general manager for Transmag. "We'd developed an efficient workflow and needed another VLF platesetter. Once we installed the Xcalibur, we were up and running extremely quickly. Since it's a field-test machine, we thought it might take a few weeks, but we were making our first plates two days after delivery and in live production within two weeks."

Transmag produces 48- to 96-page tabloid-size papers with 16 pages of color on the front, back, and center.

"We're getting throughput of 17 35x45" plates per hour, all produced in a semi-automatic, user-friendly environment," says Manseau. "As a bonus, we went from a green laser unit operating in darkroom conditions to a daylight thermal application."

The prepress staff also reports that Agfa's Thermostar P970 plate, an 830-nm thermal plate optimized for the system, is achieving high quality and excellent results on press. "In the publication world, every minute counts," says Manseau. "Our plateroom operators really appreciate the automated features of the system, which simplifies plate loading and speeds the entire process."

At the Drupa 2000 show, Barco Graphics introduced the Mondrian VLF thermal platesetter, which it named after the famous Dutch Modernist painter. The machine, which images plates up to 80x61" in size, prompts Barco to claim that it is the largest and fastest CTP system on the market.

Mondrian, says Barco, is designed for use by high-volume magazine, commercial, and book printers utilizing sheetfed or web presses producing up to 64 pages. At the Graph Expo and Converting Expo 2000 show in Chicago last fall, Barco showed the Mondrian as a manual unit; this year's Print 01 exhibit is expected to feature the system in a fully automatic version, complete with plate punch.

Mondrian, which features patented technology with flatbed architecture for imaging at 830-nm wavelength, is equipped with multiple exposure heads and over 80 watts of laser power. During operation, the plate remains stationary; no mechanical clamps are required, thus allowing Mondrian to image the entire plate.

Mondrian exposes plates in both portrait and landscape mode. In portrait exposure mode, Mondrian can achieve an increased performance of up to 90%, according to Barco. The unit has a rated maximum throughput of a dozen 24-up plates per hour at 2,400-dpi resolution. Four bins provide for on-line capacity of up to 400 plates.

Mondrian is available in manual, semi-automatic, and automatic models. An optional on-line punch fits into the conveyor. All requirements for sheetfed as well as web presses can be fulfilled, says Barco.

The first Mondrian user in North America is Eclipse Colour, an eight-year-old, 20-employee prepress shop in Burlington, Ontario, 30 miles outside Toronto. The shop plans to complete the installation this month, just as it is moving to a new 14,000-square-foot facility.

"As a film house, installing a CTP platesetter makes a lot of sense for us," says Angelo Antoniadis, general manager of Eclipse Colour. "We do a lot of file preparation for CTP for catalog and magazine printers. Our expertise is in prepress and some of our customers—advertising agencies, printers, and publishers—were contending with bad platemaking. We asked ourselves why we shouldn't produce the plates ourselves, so that clients that give us files would get a nice, clean, fast-turnaround CTP plate directly from us."

Surrounded by a bevy of commercial printing establishments in the Toronto region, Eclipse Colour has focused on a single niche on which to target its new VLF platesetter.

"We found that many small commercial printers cannot afford a CTP system nor do they have the expertise to run it," says Antoniadis. "At the same time, they know they're losing jobs to CTP so there's a big gaping hole. We feel that, with a large-format platesetter, we'll be able to offer our CTP services to all sizes of printers, from large-format operations that print packaging, point-of-purchase, and books down to the small and mid-size shops. We think this strategy will enable us to gain revenue we weren't getting before."

Eclipse Colour is not only moving to a new facility and installing the Mondrian platesetter, but it is switching from a Scitex Brisque workflow to a Prinergy workflow, and installing a new Fuji FinalProof proofing system. The company will add these new capabilities to its present services: digital proofing, scanning, imagesetting, and film output.

"Our biggest issue with installing the Mondrian platesetter is that we'll have to go from a two-shift operation to a 24-hour operation to meet the needs of our new clients," says Antoniadis. "But we'll be offering our customers a less-expensive alternative to film and faster turnaround."

Creo Products introduced its VLF Trendsetter in the mid-1990s to provide CTP solutions for very large format web and sheetfed printing, especially converters and packaging printers, trade shops, and printers of magazines, books, catalogs, and directories of various types.

These semi-automatic thermal platesetters offer a unique external-drum architecture and SquareSpot thermal imaging.

SquareSpot imaging, which earned Creo an InterTech Technology Award from the Graphic Arts Technical Foundation in 1996 as part of its thermal laser head technology, achieves repeatable, high-quality color while significantly reducing costs, notes CreoScitex.

From prepress to the pressroom, the vendor continues, SquareSpot cuts makeready time and waste, and improves press utilization by delivering plates with unmatched accuracy and repeatability. Plates imaged with SquareSpot technology can hold a tonal range of 1% to 99%, according to CreoScitex.

To improve fit and register on press, CreoScitex employs a unique temperature compensation system during plate imaging to correct for plate expansion and contraction. This ensures that imaging is repeatable from plate to plate and accurate from platesetter to platesetter.

To allow for efficient matching of platesetting equipment with press or job requirements, Creo-Scitex offers VLF Trendsetters in models to accommodate five maximum plate sizes: 45x57", 50x67", 54x67", 50x80", and 58x80". Each model accepts any plate size from 20x15.5" up to its allowable maximum.

Workflow is an integral component of the VLF Trendsetters, which have the power to quickly process the complex files needed for very large format plates. Available in a range of configurations and speeds, the workflow is designed to match file complexity and productivity needs.

CreoScitex says it recognizes the benefits of open connectivity solutions, allowing for customization of prepress solutions according to operational needs and existing equipment investments.

When George Rice & Sons/Quebecor World, the large sheetfed and web printer headquartered in Los Angeles, purchased a new Heidelberg Sunday 2000 eight-unit, single-web press last fall, it also decided to add a new CreoScitex VLF Trendsetter.

While George Rice/Quebecor was already using Trendsetter Spectrum platesetters, managers felt that the VLF format would suit the larger web press and also be able to produce plates for the smaller sheetfed and web presses. The company installed the VLF Trendsetter in late December and had it operational within three days.

"We added an extra-fast exposure head for added productivity," says Ken Bendrick, director of Primedia Services for George Rice/Quebecor, "plus we were one of the first to install the Prinergy 2.0 workflow on the front-end for added productivity. Prinergy gets us into a place where the pages are ready to be plotted. We're producing plates every five minutes, or 16 plates every 90 minutes."

Bendrick continues, "We also added stochastic screening capabilities and CreoScitex's PrintLink ink-key preset software, which creates color profiles that we send to the Sunday 2000 to set the ink fountains."

Krause CTP offers its LaserStar family of very large format platesetters in three models. The LaserStar LS 140, which produces plates up to 55.9" in size, features an internal drum and a YAG visible light laser and YAG thermal laser. The unit produces from six to 26 plates per hour.

The LS 170 produces plates up to 66.9"; it too features an internal drum and utilizes a YAG visible laser light, YAG thermal laser, and violet laser diode. It produces from six to 15 plates an hour.

Finally, Krause's largest model is the LS 200, which produces plates up to 79" in size.

To date, Krause reports that it has installed 350 CTP platesetters worldwide.

Lüscher AG, whose headquarters are in Leutwil, Switzerland, offers two VLF platesetters, introduced two years ago. The XPose! 160 produces plates up to 67x54" while the XPose! 180 produces plates up to 80x58". To date, Lüscher says, it has installed more than 160 systems worldwide, including in Europe, South America, and Japan. The XPose! 160 is more popular, the company says, because 80% of the CTP plates fit that size.

"While the VLF portion of the CTP platesetter market is not huge, we feel that many equipment manufacturers underestimated it," says David Parker, Lüscher's director of sales and marketing in North America. "We feel that we're in a good position, especially as a result of the growth of CTP, the gains in larger-format press equipment sales, and the need for larger plates for packaging. We believe we have both a price advantage and a unique design."

Carey Color, the digital imaging multimedia shop in Cleveland mentioned earlier, is installing no less than three new Lüscher XPose! platesetters this month—but its president has a definite plan for the marketing of the new units.

"In our geographic area, we have a big concentration of the larger-format presses in the country," says Gary Moravcik, head of Carey Color. "Because of this, we're going to focus on printers that have presses that are 60 to 78 inches wide. That includes web printers producing direct-mail work and sheetfed printers producing oversize point-of-purchase displays and banners."

Carey Color is installing two manual units and one automatic unit. Also, by having both sizes of machines, it has complete back-up if one system fails.

A few years ago, Moravcik had begun to research the large-format CTP platesetter market. "But I was premature," he recalls. "Large-format platesetters are expensive and the service contracts alone can run to $4,000 to $5,000 per month. We didn't want to buy a machine to keep it busy for only four hours a day.

"Our plan is to sign a couple of large-format printers to contracts so our machine stays busy producing plates. One web printer may make only 15,000 plates per year, equivalent to just four plates per day, which makes it hard to justify the purchase of a VLF system. But all of the clients we have in mind are within driving range, so we can easily truck the plates to their plants."

Carey Color was established 27 years ago in Cleveland as a prepress trade shop. Nine years ago, the company purchased a photography studio and moved into digital photography, digital imaging, and multimedia services. Its nationwide customers include printers as well as producers of mail-order catalogs and interactive media.

Last month, Carey Color and its 70 employees moved to a new 25,000-square-foot facility. Counting its two sister units, Carey Digital in Cincinnati and Carey Indianapolis, the company employs 135 people and bills $15 million in sales.

The new facility will enable Carey Color to install the needed pre- and post-bake ovens. "The Lüscher units have a very simple design and work like a Swiss watch," concludes Moravcik. "I visited three different trade shops using the Lüscher devices and they had had only one service call a year."