More on CTP – Simplifying your choice: Andy McCourt

My original article responded to concerted attacks on thermal CTP (and Creo in particular) and significantly, the most outrage has come from suppliers with heavy investments in silver-halide and/or visible light CTP.. I have no bias one way or the other and I have no clients who sell CTP or plates. My main client is the Australian Printing and Graphic Arts Industry – I care only about bringing information, in context, as usefully as possible to the industry. My opinions are clearly identified, as in ‘my call’ on CTP investments, which I repeat from two weeks ago:

• If you can afford the hardware, especially if you are a larger format, 8pp, printer, go thermal. Go processless thermal when available (and no, I’m not retained by Agfa, Creo or KPG). No darkroom or safelight needed.
• If you want cheaper hardware, and are be a B2 or smaller format printer and you want less change to the way plates behave when you go CTP, choose a Violet CTP setter and plates. Make sure you buy the right processor and chemistry. And remember, the hardware may cost less but the Total Cost of Operation in making plates will most likely be higher. You need to handle undeveloped plates in yellow safelight.


• If you are an A3/B3 printer or B2 printer doing mostly two-colour work with the occasional four-colour, look into one of the excellent polyester plate CTP choices. ECRM even has one that will do both metal and polyester CTP. For small offset, Silvermaster and Setprint CT Plates have been around for years

Potential CTP buyers should be able to make a valued judgment on this most critical area of investment. The above call does not say ‘thermal good-violet bad.’ Both technologies have their place in 2004, but my opinion is that one offers a more sustainable future for top-end printers.



Confusion abounds


There is confusion amongst some prospective buyers and there is a need for clarity. Any step that simplifies the process should be a good one but there is a tendency to overcomplicate CTP and, it seems almost like deliberate efforts to create uncertainty and doubt about stable, simple processes that are already proven.
www.mittelhaus.com (click ‘English’) is a classic example and the worrying thing is that it appears the illustrious Seybold Report is calling 10 years of highly advanced CTP progress into question, based on one person’s bias.

Not all responses to my article were critical. The most balanced reply came from Heidelberg, a company that supplies not only all three main CTP technologies, but also presses, and probably knows the Australian marketplace better than prepress-only suppliers.

Excellent "to the point" write-up Andy....... As usual it's interesting watching and reading the opinion waves roll back and forth between the unbiased experts. Thankfully they are not running print operations as I doubt they would be very successful / profitable! At the end of the day, it comes down to doing a review of current/future needs of a printer and providing unbiased and clear guidance. Your call / summing up is spot on and also how we have seen our sales of CTP system develop. Illustrated in our current order backlog for CTP systems; XX thermal, YY blue violet and ZZ polyester systems..(Actual sales figures have been removed for obvious reasons but show nearly double the number of thermal orders over visible light.)

In response to my quoting Screen’s Gary Seidl who noted, ‘Australia is mostly a thermal market,'Garry Muratore of Agfa wrote:'The fact is that the Australian market differs very little in this regard to any of the major markets around the globe.'

Fine, if Australia differs very little from other major markets, perhaps this statistic from independent Vantage Strategic Marketing’s website www.vsm.uk.com/Press6.htm, is of interest:
In the latest edition of its ‘Direct-to’ Technologies 2004 Report, VSM point out that sales of thermal platesetters soared to 64% of worldwide sales last year, boosting the installed base of thermal machines to 56%. Thermal plates accounted for 68% of CtP plate consumption.

Vantage concludes from its survey of over 2,000 printers and suppliers that:
The Report concludes that visible CtP platesetters will gain some annual sales market share – rising perhaps from 36% to 40% in ’08, but that the accumulative installed base is still likely to remain biased towards thermal.

When it comes to plate volumes, in Asia, where the majority of Australia’s competition operates, the picture is even more convincing, according to Steven Venn, Area Manager for the world’s largest manufacturer of CTP consumables, Kodak Polychrome Graphics. He said in September 2003 issue of KPG’s ‘CTPeXPOSURE’ news bulletin (archive can be found onlists.outputdsj.com.au/mailman/listinfo.cgi/ctpexposure

In the Asia Pacific region, the volume of thermal CTP (plates) is 72%, compared with 28% visible light technology.

So, take your pick ; 56%, 64% or 72% thermal in Australia. Mostly a thermal market appears to be right. Accurate call, Screen’s Gary Seidl!

Some printers do

Regarding claims of equal quality between violet and thermal, in the booming
print powerhouses of Asia, most exporting printers see thermal a way of
gaining a commercial edge.

Exporting Asian printers recognize they have to offer quality equal to or better than the best found in their export markets and more of them are turning to thermal because most of the top printers in Europe, the USA and Australia are using thermal.

I for one, believe that great results can be produced from either CTP method. I have recently had two brochures printed with silver halide plates and am very happy with the results. But it is no coincidence that the majority of very high quality B1 (8-up) and bigger printers are running thermal. This was confirmed by Alan Dresch, recently visiting from the UK. He spends most of his time in print shops profiling presses with his ISOLitho software (www.mellowcolour.com ). Alan is a visible light CTP pioneer and owns many patents. He commented;
Almost all the high quality large format multi-colour printers today use thermal CTP”

No bias, just research

Please remember I have no bias one way or another, although I do have opinions. So does Brian Filler, managing director of Screen UK who said in July Printweek (UK) magazine, upon reading the shock drupa predictions from Andy Tribute and Michael Mittelhaus who said in the Seybold Report that, by 2008, violet (visible) light CTP would dominate and that only ‘small islands of thermal diehards’ would remain, (PMP, IPMG, Penfold Buscombe and others – sorry ; you’re ‘thermal diehards!’ on ‘small islands!’ according to Seybold):

<>I>”I couldn’t help but wondering that, not only were they at a different show to the rest of us but they have no idea of what is happening in the real world of CTP and printing. Their views of a violet-dominated world are totally unrealistic and doesn’t reflect what is actually happening in the industry”

This is from a supplier who manufactures and sells violet technology as well as thermal. Filler goes on:

“I prefer to look at the facts. Last year, 98% of all B1 and 60% of all B2 CTP devices installed in the UK were thermal while the majority of B3 CTP was violet.”
Does this ring a bell with ‘my call? The UK must qualify as a ‘major market.’

He concludes:
“To date, there is not one customer who has purchased a thermal CTP unit and replaced it with, or added, a visible light device. At Screen, we are regularly replacing visible light devices with thermal because it is a natural way forward.”

Balance is king

To be fair, Agfa’s Tony King (UK) injects a goodly degree of balance into the debate in his much referred to white paper. I recommend it to all potential CTP buyers and it can be seen on www.agfa.com Tony contacted me about the article and noted:
“To be honest, I too was surprised by the scale of the anti-thermal rhetoric
after Drupa, some of it seemed rather sharp.”

So here we have a very savvy visible-plate guy with 23 years in print under his belt, being surprised and calling the anti-thermal diatribes ‘rhetoric.’ Tony makes some very good points about silver-violet CTP and it’s refreshing to see a supplier injecting wisdom and balance, and not ‘slaughtering innocent animals’ (qv).

Silverado – or Heave-ho Silver?

Australia is the third largest producer of silver in the world. We know this metal well. In the 1985 film ‘Silverado, a misfit bunch of friends come together to right the injustices which exist in a small town. I’m with them.

World photographic-based use of silver is plummeting. It has dropped for the last four years straight and is below 200 million ounces for the first time since 1993. Naturally, digital cameras account for much of this but the gradual elimination of graphic arts film and thermal CTP has contributed. This decline is more than made up for by other industrial and decorative uses for silver, but some firms have large investments in silver-halide based plate production.

Can anyone seriously suggest that this planet will endorse a reversal of an established trend, caused by technological progress, and go back to a last-century technology?

In fairness, silver can be recovered but its overall image as less environmentally responsible process is exemplified by Fuji’s decision not to produce a silver violet-imaged plate, soundly linked to environmental reasons by GSA’s Peter Carrigan in last week’s Print 21 Online where he says: “Fujifilm has never produced a silver based plate product and is world leader in terms of environmental responsibilities and practices.” Also see the section ‘Every silver lining has a cloud’ in Fuji’s Brillia LP-NV brochure on their website: http://home.fujifilm.com

Furthermore, GSA’s Business Development Manager Bruce Caldwell is quoted in August Print21 Magazine, “Fujifilm made a commitment to violet CTP imaging on photopolymer plates to avoid some of the environmental disadvantages of using silver-based plates.”

Fuji has feet planted in both the thermal and violet camps, and rightly so. The Fuji 8-up and 4-up Thermal CTP devices are re-badged Screen models, but Fuji is in a position to make acquisition more attractive with plate deals. Photopolymer (no-silver) sensitized plates do offer some advantages but are widely acknowledged to have narrower tonal range (typically 2%-98% against 1%-99%) and lower resolving power than silver or thermal. 200lpi is Fuji’s stated maximum for Brillia LP-NV and as for stochastic screened jobs… you be the judge. However, they are good enough for much of the work and newspapers love them. Photopolymer, like thermal, plates can be baked for long print runs over 1 million impressions, unlike silver – it melts.

The pursuit of processless

Processless plates are only just coming in from all three major plate suppliers; KPG, Agfa and Fuji. However, the much underrated CTP and DI (direct imaging) pioneer Presstek has had ablative processless plates for some time. Like all new technologies, they are initially more expensive and currently slower. Certainly they do not measure up on run length achievable. But they will get faster, cheaper and tougher. This is exactly what happened with thermal process plates. They are 60% cheaper than five years ago and the price is dropping. Soon, they may be the same price as ‘conventional’ plates.

The prospect of processless photopolymer is a good one, but one which Creo’s founder and VP, Technology Dan Gelbart calls into question. “Today’s most powerful violet device (100mW) would require over half a day to image a processless plate, and would have a replacement price of almost (AUD)$25,000…In terms of media, there are three main varieties of violet plate on the market compared with 10 main types of thermal plates, even if we exclude the new processless plates.”

There is only one vendor (Nichia of Japan) for the high power violet diode and because of patents, there may well be no more. The violet diode is a marvelous device and found in CD and DVD players, which is its main market. It is cheap and durable and uses little energy (currently 5mW up to 60mW). Thermal lasers use more energy, around 30 Watts – which is why they can image processless 830nm plates already. Will Nichia ever produce a 20W+ violet diode for processless photopolymer plates? Dan Gelbart thinks it unlikely; “Current and future CD and DVD burners simply won’t require high power lasers – even 50mW is overkill.”

However, there is a very new technology called switchable polymers and this will be the subject of a separate investigation. We don’t know enough about it yet.

So, it is a fact that thermal is the only currently viable processless plate – with all of the attendant environmental benefits.

Changing the CTP call?

Would I change ‘the call’ in light of the ensuing commentary? If I thought it wrong, I would admit it and change, but I think it is pretty close to right.

B1 and VLF are natural thermal formats. B2 printers can get great deals on violet CTP devices, lowering entry cost, and can achieve bundled ‘plate deals.’ However, 4-up thermal devices and plates are coming down in price. The B3 or 2-up market, for as long as it lasts before all-digital presses make more sense, enjoys excellent choice in metal, polyester and paper plates.

Violet CTP machines cost less because of their internal-drum imagesetter heritage. Some manufacturers even use the same drum for CTP and film. So, if entry cost is an issue, this can be a positive but, and I can still find no evidence to the contrary, thermal plates costs less per square metre to the majority of users, and are getting cheaper. Over three years of a CTP device’s life, this could amount to a large sum of money, and then there is the resale or trade-in value of the machine to consider.

Yes, violet and thermal CTP will co-exist for some years and it is absolutely correct to say that each printer will need to examine his/her individual requirements, future growth and economics. Any CTP is better than no CTP at all if Australia is to remain an advanced and competitive print communication society.

As Peter Carrigan advised, consider writing off the hardware over a short time, say three years. Things change rapidly. Three years of CTP platemaking – violet/silver, violet/photopolymer or thermal – should return positive dividends to any printer. Don’t forget to consider plate punching and bending automation as part of the simplification process. Workflow and proofing are of equal importance.

In November Print 21 magazine there will be a revised survey and report on CTP – all of it. Useful, unbiased information is invited from all quarters.