1. Advantages of CTP technology
The various advantages of CTP technology in printing determine that CTP will be an inevitable trend in the development of the printing industry. From the current application situation, the advantages of CTP technology are mainly reflected in the following aspects:
1. Good printing quality
Films are no longer used in the CTP plate-making technology, but the graphics and text are directly presented on the printing plate through light energy or heat energy. Therefore, the dots on the printing plate are the dots that are directly imaged at one time, eliminating the film quality characteristics and dust. Compared with ordinary PS version, the dots on CTP printing plate are cleaner and clearer. And because of the reduction of printing and other processes, many equipment and operation factors in the plate making process are avoided, so that the possibility of human errors in the plate making process is greatly reduced. In addition, the CTP technology uses a more accurate plate positioning technology, which eliminates the error of manual imposition. The repeated positioning accuracy of the completed four-color plate is higher, and the brightness adjustment error in the printed matter is almost negligible. In general, the application of CTP technology improves the printing quality.
2. Shorten the production cycle and save labor costs
The traditional plate-making process takes a certain amount of time from outputting the film to printing, especially when there are a large number of layouts, it takes longer time for work such as imposition and printing, and often the situation of printing machines and other plates. The CTP technology can be used for previewing, electronic imposition, and imaging directly on the plate material, thus eliminating the processes of photo-discharging, manual imposition, and plate-making. It only takes a minute or two to put together a set of four-color folio, and it takes only about ten minutes to output a set of four-color plates. phenomenon. Moreover, because the intermediate link is reduced in the CTP plate-making process, the operator required for the intermediate link is also reduced, and a large amount of labor cost is saved. In addition, it can greatly shorten the printing preparation time and reduce the cost of pre-printed paper and ink.
3. Can carry out network transmission, realize network confirmation and print on demand
As a widely popular communication tool, the Internet connects printing houses with customers and suppliers to complete sales, distribute printed materials, manage printing production, and order consumables. Many printing houses have already achieved network connection and use e-mail for business contact. CTP technology fully adopts digital process, which provides conditions for online uploading, online confirmation and remote printing. Moreover, CTP can realize "RIP once, multiple output", after forming the dot array, you can store the data on the hard disk and call the output multiple times.
4. Achieve environmentally friendly plate making
The no-rinse thermal plates used in the thermal CTP technology can be operated in the bright room without the need for chemical processing. Compared with the traditional plate-making process, the developer potion is no longer used, thereby avoiding the generation of toxic substances such as waste water, protecting the environment, and solving the contradiction between plate-making and environmental protection. From the current development of photosensitive CTP technology and plate materials, the technology of using chemical-free treatment for printing plates is also being continuously improved.
Second, the factors that should be considered when introducing CTP technology
Although the CTP technology has many advantages over the traditional plate-making process, it has been successfully applied in units that have high requirements for timeliness, such as newspaper printing houses. But at present, when general color printing factories are preparing to introduce CTP technology, they should also consider the special requirements and their actual conditions in their applications:
1. CTP equipment investment in the first phase
At this stage, the quotations of CTP equipment from various manufacturers are between 1.6 million yuan and 2.4 million yuan. But the purchase of the entire system is far more than these costs. It also requires some related equipment, such as flange punching equipment, testing instruments, etc., plus tariffs and value-added tax, the whole set will cost about 3 million yuan. The best traditional plate-making equipment only needs hundreds of thousands of yuan, and the purchase of CTP equipment needs to be several times higher than the price.
2. The problem of expensive supplies
The price of plate materials has always been the biggest bottleneck for the popularization of CTP technology. At present, there are few domestic manufacturers that can supply high-quality CTP plate materials. The CTP plate materials used in China are almost all imported. Therefore, although the price of plate materials is constantly falling, the price is still much higher than traditional printing plates. As another important content of the CTP process, the effect of digital proofing is not completely convincing. The expensive prices of consumables such as color ink and paper used in digital proofing make the cost of digital proofing a burden.
3. Related supporting facilities
Due to the higher and larger requirements of the CTP equipment on the site, in order to ensure a good working environment, it must provide a large enough and suitable space for distribution; one of the advantages of CTP lies in the network transmission version, building a safe and independent Internet network environment is sufficient An important condition for exerting the function of CTP; due to the requirements of printing plate output, the production of electronic printing plates must be realized, and at the same time, the burden of the process server should be avoided as much as possible. It should be equipped with layout, layout detection and proofing system. In short, in order to cooperate with CTP, the general principle is that all require digitization.
4. Talent issues
In the traditional operation process, the output personnel only need to output the film, and all subsequent work is completed by subsequent links. However, before outputting CTP, it is necessary to make a large layout on the layout and set auxiliary information for printing to form a complete electronic printing plate. This requires the typesetting personnel to understand the comprehensive printing requirements, the output personnel must be clear about the subsequent printing and binding technology, and must also master the skills used in the network and the modification technology of electronic documents. Therefore, after the introduction of CTP technology, typesetting and output personnel must extend the scope of knowledge to the printing level and the network level. In fact, there are not many talents who are proficient in all technical knowledge from typesetting to printing, and the existing technical personnel education and training institutions cannot fully meet the actual needs. CTP technology completely uses digital workflow, and the shortage of technical talent will become more and more prominent.
5. CTP printing plate durability problem
Although in promoting the CTP's printing durability, various manufacturers claim to have a height of two to three hundred thousand indies, but in actual application, it is found that this is not the case. Because CTP printing plates are often prone to dropouts after printing tens of thousands of prints, printing with CTP printing plates will often shut down and other plates, and sometimes this problem occurs even for 10,000 or 20,000 prints.
6. Process reliability issues
CTP technology is a new technology, the process is still unstable, and problems such as loss of network points caused by operation methods or parameter settings during use cannot be avoided. In addition, because CTP uses the printing plate output directly, the printing plate should be transmitted in the CTP machine. If the setting of the CTP equipment is unreasonable and the maintenance and maintenance are not done adequately, it will also damage and reduce the quality of the printing plate, causing the printing plate to resist printing Problems such as declining strength.
7. The problem of digital proofing
After adopting CTP technology, since no film is generated, the traditional proofing method can no longer be used, and only digital proofing method can be used. The materials and technologies used in digital proofing are fundamentally different from printing and traditional proofing, making the reliability of digital proofing still a certain gap from traditional proofing. In addition, if you want to ensure the effect of digital proofing, you must carry out color management operations, and the application of color management in domestic printing plants is generally not mature enough.
8. Problems of production management
The CTP process is quite different from the traditional pre-press processing process, so it puts forward new requirements for the production management of CTP. The first is the training and management of technical personnel; the second is the management of electronic documents. Since the CTP process directly outputs the electronic documents to the printing plate, in addition to the printing plate, the electronic document is the only original material and must be To carry out scientific preservation and management; again, because the CTP process directly outputs the printing plate, it cannot be modified like film, and the chance of error repair is reduced. Therefore, the concept of electronic printing plate must be established and strict pre-printing inspection must be carried out to ensure Zero error output.
In short, most of the printing companies in China have not yet reached the advanced foreign level, and they should do their best when preparing to invest in CTP equipment. Of course, in order to maintain competitiveness, domestic companies must also prepare to invest in CTP technology in due course.
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