Agfa Graphics

Of all the issues, and they are many, facing the graphic arts and printing industry today, none can ignite a heated debate more quickly than the issue of computer-to-plate (CTP) vs. computer-to-film (CTF) among their respective ardent supporters. In the past few years, as CTP became a reality with efficient, dependable and cost-effective equipment, increasing numbers of companies replaced aging imagesetters with platesetting devices. Why? Because many printers saw the new breed of CTP devices as an opportunity to springboard to a shorter production workflow without the added consumables and chemicals of film processing. Also, the new digital, CTP plates are more uniform, longer-wearing

Eastern Rainbow and Offset Paperback are knee-deep in beta exercises. Eastern Rainbow is testing Agfa's new violet laser digital platesetter, Galileo VS. Offset Paperback is exploring new reverse imposition territories with a new Purup-Eskofot EskoScan.Why the testing? What are the verdicts? BY MARIE RANOIA ALONSO Beta duty. It ain't pretty. In the trenches, dozens upon dozens of commercial printing operations in the United States, each year, open their doors, their digital infrastructures, their prepress departments, their pressrooms, to bleeding-edge technologies. There are PDF workflows to test; there are new digital proofing devices to calibrate; there are top secret on-press imaging technologies to

Job tickets—which have been around since Gutenberg, if only in an elementary form—have evolved from handwritten envelopes to computerized, customized, global documents. In the new millennium, that evolution continues as job tickets are transformed from mere digital versions of their paper-based predecessors to virtual windows in the production process. BY CHERYL A. ADAMS "Our crystal ball indicates that, not only will print buying on the Internet become widespread, but also, in many cases, the management systems that the printer uses [such as those for electronic job ticketing applications] will be run totally over the Internet, as well," says Carol Andersen, president of Micro

On the bill for DRUPA 2000 are a virtual army of new imagesetters, a variety of digital platesetters, plus PDF tools, new thermal consumables and scanning systems galore. BY MARIE RANOIA ALONSO It seems almost ironic that, after DRUPA 1995 called for the prepress industry to move its collective reasoning away from film-based environments and toward the promise of thermal CTP, that DRUPA 2000 would arrive, after much anticipation and press attention, and tout almost the opposite. Film is not dead. Imagesetters are still hot technologies. Guess what, so are platesetting devices for conventional and thermal CTP; so are new digital proofers; and so

Digital printing is finally well beyond concept acceptance, as On Demand proved last month. New moves in on-press imaging and color server technologies—and the Internet—are delivering on the promise of digital printing. BY MARIE RANOIA ALONSO Given the impossible-to-ignore high velocity of the Internet as it targets multiple areas of the print production process lately, it is no surprise that the Internet is also targeting the time-sensitive profit center that is on-demand digital printing. True to current form, the dotcom emphasis at On Demand in New York was staggering, but not surprising—new online solutions for on-demand document fulfillment, new Internet tools for

While this cutting-edge technology offers the promise of "speed without compromise," some reluctant customers (who are uncomfortable with the electronic concept) fear that the digital proofing promise is simply too good to be true. How, then, do commercial printers convince them otherwise? BY CHERYL A. ADAMS "Have you looked at a National Geographic that was printed in 1980? Looks great doesn't it, just like today's issue? Only the 2000 issue was produced in a fraction of the time—without compromise in quality and from a source of information that is vast," says John Bassett, director of sales and marketing at Scholin Brothers Printing in

Lieber Vater! In many ways, CIP3 can give thanks to the DRUPA exhibition in Germany. DRUPA 1995 was the event that really brought attention to the CIP3 initiative. DRUPA 2000 will see several conceptual aspects of the initiative realized. BY MARIE RANOIA ALONSO In late 1993, Heidelberger Druckmaschinen initiated discussions in Germany with the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics. The two organizations, later joined by bindery innovator Polar-Mohr, formed the foundation for the CIP3 cooperative—a study group known as CIP3, the International Cooperation for Integration of Prepress, Press and Postpress. By DRUPA 1995, the CIP3 movement took official form. Its objective: Facilitate data exchange

The DRUPA exhibition, scheduled for May 18-31, in Dusseldorf, Germany, is now just one month away. Digital prepress technology trends targeting the international show include new PDF-based workflows, new color management tools and a variety of solutions to further automate front-end functionality. To map out the digital prepress direction of DRUPA 2000, Printing Impressions went direct to the sources . . . Vector VersatilityDennis Aubrey, CEO of the Altamira Group, on the limitless nature of images at DRUPA 2000 and into the next year—when digital images are no longer restricted in size or resolution. The year 2000 will see a production world in which

DRUPA 1995 was the beginning of the thermal computer-to-plate frenzy. Leading the charge: Creo and Kodak. Five years later, new platesetting initiatives are poised for DRUPA 2000. What digital platesetters will be announced at DRUPA 2000? Dusseldorf, Germany, holds the answers. BY MARIE RANOIA ALONSO At DRUPA 1995, a tiny Creo Products—tiny compared with the CTP giants Linotype-Hell, Gerber and Scitex— touted the production and workflow merits of thermal CTP for commercial printing. Creo's message was all thermal. Kodak consumables were Creo's enabling technology, bridging Creo's thermal output engines with the digital plate production demands of the average commercial printer. Who didn't take

The sea of e-commerce companies is expanding; Seybold Boston was wired, so to speak, to the Internet. printCafe, a new Internet endeavor, captured the most attention at the Boston show last month, but so did new digital workflows, color management tools and Adobe's latest—a bridge for PDF. BY MARIE RANOIA ALONSO Walking into Seybold Boston last month it seemed almost unbelievable that the words Internet and startup are still synonymous. Everywhere you looked, it was dotcom this, dotcom that—if you stood still too long, you were at serious risk of finding a dotcom appearing after your last name on your Seybold badge. Then