Epson launched two NEW SureColor P-Series printers in the Fall of 2019 - the SC-P7570 and the SC-P9570. These printers will NOT replace the SureColor P7000 or P9000, but they do offer several worthwhile enhancements at a slight price increase. With the release of the SC-P9570, the SureColor P10000 will be end-of-life in Q1 2020. … Read More...
Category Archives: Prepress
In November of 2022, Catherine Haynes and Katherine Treadaway of APR presented a "Lunch and Learn" talk for the members of FLAG (Flexo Label Advantage Group LLC.): Looking for creative ways to put some PEP into your bottom line? You're invited to explore strategies for improvement and how to get more out of production. Catherine … Read More...
Cleaning flexographic printing plates after a press run and prior to storage can quickly become a bottleneck, eventually piling up and lead to a labor intensive and undesirable job to accomplish manually. Left uncleaned, plates can be damaged or offer poor print results in subsequent press runs. With APR's line of Automatic Plate Washers, this task … Read More...
Flat-Top Dots Let’s start by stating what is meant by the term flat-top dot. A flat-top dot on a photopolymer plate is one that accepts the transfer of data from an imaging device to the finished plate at a 1:1 ratio. The 1:1 imaging ratio is measured in the file, post-CDI imaging, and ultimately on the … Read More...
Why should I expect plate quality to improve by bringing in platemaking in-house versus what I experience with professionals that focus solely on platemaking and prepress? An incentive to bring platemaking in-house is often cost savings and fear of a press going down if a plate is damaged, missing, or worn out. In short, what … Read More...
The title of this article is meant to address a common mistake platemakers make when performing both a main exposure and back exposure step test. We see this happen more frequently on main exposure tests because the lamp cycle is much longer than a back exposure step test. With conventional bank light exposure systems, we … Read More...
More than just dot %... or is it dot area? So often when we are speaking of dot quality and measurement we default to dot %. But is there more we can measure to understand what aspects of the printed dot are affecting dot size, quality, and even longevity? Even if we focus only on … Read More...
The Continued Evolution of Solvent Photopolymer Plate Processing APR prides itself in not just quoting equipment and providing solution based consumables, but making it a point to thoroughly understand a customer’s needs and goals. As water wash plate technologies continue to evolve into a viable competitor to solvent and thermal processing through improved print quality … Read More...
There are essentially 3 methods of processing or washing out photopolymer plates. These processes include solvent wash, thermal removal, and water wash processing. The water wash plates of the past were not known necessary to be the best printing plate but they were known to resist ink swell and last a long time. In the … Read More...
Our industry experience a huge leap forward when direct imaging of photopolymer platemaking was introduced. Elimination of films and chemistry along with the many other benefits CDI has to offer is arguably the most significant advancement in plate quality over the past 3 decades. One not so good thing about this very positive move to … Read More...