Report from the CTP front #1 – Garry Muratore, Agfa, protects the innocent
What is becoming increasing frustrating is a vocal group that conducts the debate as if it was a witch-hunt. This group is not necessarily made up of vendors; typically it is a group of people, including some in the media, that are quick to parrot the obvious advantages of CTP, but claim they are exclusively unique to the thermal process. As soon as you dare to mention that CTP users have a choice of technologies this group cries “A witch! Burn him!” and the debate degenerates into a stoush of near biblical proportions instead of providing discussion that gives prospective CTP users information to enable them to choose the right technology for the right application.
Okay, witch burning analogies aside, which is the right technology? As I said earlier the frustration is getting the message above the white noise, and the message has to be the right technology for the right application. On that score we (Agfa) are happy to promote both technologies as they both have applications to specific market segments. It is wrong to assume that one technology will win over; that’s just not going to happen and the current CTP sales are testament to exactly that.
With the above in mind my colleague Tony King from our Belgium headquarters has authored an excellent whitepaper entitled CTP – Reviewing the Trends & Technologies. It is exactly what it states to be, a 'whitepaper', that gives a balanced and objective overview of what is happening with CTP technology. Tony’s whitepaper has been published on many industry websites (including Print 21) as well as being used as the basis of CTP articles in a range of trade magazines around the world. If you haven’t seen the published article you can download it from our (Agfa’s) website
www.agfa.com.au/pdf/ctp_review_trends.pdf
What Tony points out is that “CTP has always attracted heated discussions between suppliers about which one technology is the best. Ultimately, the market place itself (rather than supplier hype and clever marketing) decides.”
Marketing wars have historical prededents
– an entertaining and educational diversion
These technology debates are nothing new. Towards the end of the 19th century the new technology of electricity was being touted as the next big thing. Two great American icons George Westinghouse and Thomas Edison went head to head in vying for the hearts and minds of a new generation hungry for the advantages that electricity could no doubt bring.
Whilst Edison was the first person to establish himself with a DC service, Westinghouse, developer of the newer AC technology, challenged his dominance of the utility industry.
Edison reacted to the competition by starting a smear campaign against Westinghouse, claiming AC technology was unsafe to use.
In 1887, he held a public demonstration in West Orange, New Jersey, supporting his accusations. Edison set up a 1,000 volt Westinghouse AC generator attached to a metal plate and executed a dozen innocent animals. The press had a field day describing the event and the new term electrocution was used to describe execution by electricity.
The above story I found on a technology website, you can read the entire story by clicking on the link below.
http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa102497.htm
The Postscript to this story is despite Edison’s smear campaign AC power won out in favour of DC because it was the right technology for the right application. Not because Westinghouse were better marketers or had a better smear campaign.
Are we electrocuting innocent animals?
Last week on this website Andy McCourt attempted to add some balance to the on-going debate, particularly in light of the very public stoush between Andy Tribute and Creo. I don’t plan to add to that stoush, people can read both sides and make up their own minds. Whilst I am pleased that Andy (McCourt) is concerned about the mud slinging, bias and defensive posturing, I feel that his comments too show some bias and I am wondering, Are we starting to see the electrocuting of innocent animals become part of the debate?
I have heard Andy speak at many functions and I have come to appreciate that his subjects generally are well researched and informative, however last weeks piece contained a few ‘innocent animals’ that I feel need to be addressed to get some balance back into the debate
What is becoming increasing frustrating is a vocal group that conducts the debate as if it was a witch-hunt. This group is not necessarily made up of vendors; typically it is a group of people, including some in the media, that are quick to parrot the obvious advantages of CTP, but claim they are exclusively unique to the thermal process. As soon as you dare to mention that CTP users have a choice of technologies this group cries “A witch! Burn him!” and the debate degenerates into a stoush of near biblical proportions instead of providing discussion that gives prospective CTP users information to enable them to choose the right technology for the right application.Australia is mostly a thermal market. Andy quoted an affable Gary Seidl of Screen. Screen in the main only sells thermal CTP (although they have just introduced smaller violet systems, and OEM some violet systems to other vendors including Agfa). So if Andy was to ask us (Agfa) we would have said our sales are about 60/40 with more growth in violet. If he was to ask Bernie Robinson of Currie Group he would get an answer based on the fact that Curries have had enormous success in the medium-size market with violet based imaging systems. The fact is that the Australian market differs very little in this regard to any of the major markets around the globe.
Thermal plates can be made faster. This statement really should read 'digital plates can be made faster.' Thermal plates offer the same advantages as violet or even polyester in this regard. In reality in the commercial market CTP speeds of engines are nearly identical, with all vendors offering units now in the 25 – 30 plates per hour bracket. If you look specifically at processless plates, thermal processless is actually slower due to the higher exposure required to image this technology (about a third slower) In the newspaper market, violet has the edge in speed with vendors offering engines in the 200+ plates an hour bracket.
Thermal plates… usually run up to colour quicker when on press. Again thermal plates offer no advantage to this regard compared to visible light technologies (silver or photopolymer). The fast make ready times we see with any digital plates are due to the fact they are clean, sharp and in register.
Thermal plates… Dots are invariably consistent. This is a factor determined by the engine design, not the choice of plates. Some of the ‘witch-burners’ will often state that only a thermal system can achieve high quality imaging (stochastic or cross modulation).
The fact is with good optical design and high-resolution plates quality is assured. To illustrate exactly this point at DRUPA 2000 we imaged stochastically (CristalRaster) a print of a blue tree frog. We used three types of plates – thermal, thermal ablative (processless) and violet, – and the printed results are indistinguishable. (If any one is interested I still have printed copies, I am happy to send them to anyone who e-mails me)Right: The Blue Frog imaged on a Galileo on three different plates but identical print result.
The frog sample proves thermal and silver plates show equivalent press performance. Note that, in the sample image below despite the plate capability of resolving a one pixel line, the press used here can’t print the same level of detail that the plate holds – see how the ink spreads on contact with the paper in the shadow region. In reality, silver and thermal plates have equal quality and both can hold levels of detail that are, in some cases, beyond the capability of the offset printing process.
You can’t under or over expose a thermal plate. This is a comment we used to see bandied about in the very early days of the CTP debate, so I was surprised to see it surface in Andy’s story because it is just not true! Like any digital plate, there can indeed be a negative effect of over and under exposure of thermal plates. Thermal plate users know that increasing or decreasing exposure will have a measurable effect on the plate and therefore the print. Under exposure usually leads to background coating retention of the plates (leading to poor image quality) Over exposure can lead to image sharpening and in extreme cases image ablation (Where parts of the plate coating are removed) This is why the suppliers use digital test files for all plate types to optimise exposure conditions.
Thermal plates cost less than violet. Most vendors will agree that a key factor in plate pricing is consumption. Larger users generally buy at better rates. The biggest users of digital plates in Australia are the heatset web offset market and the newspaper market. Heatset web printers tend to use thermal whilst newspapers tend to use violet. No one plate technology has a pricing advantage in these high volume market applications. Where this statement grows in credence is when a large volume market is compared to a small volume market.
There’s more choice with thermal. In the early days of CTP there was little or no choice when it come to suppliers and no one thought it was a problem. As the market grew so did the choice of thermal vendors. The same is true of the violet vendors, although Agfa pioneered the violet market most of our competitors have (or soon will) develop violet plate technologies. The fact is all of the large plate vendors offer comprehensive plate choice because the market dictates such.
I was pleased to see that in the final part of Andy’s story he identified that different markets have different needs and then went on to make recommendations, but my concern is that such recommendations are based on inaccurate information regarding the technology. In one case Andy suggests large format and 8pp printers to go thermal, and suggests to 'go processless when available.' In some cases this may be a valid recommendation but in high volume plate environments such solutions may not have suitable throughput (particularly in the case of the much slower processless systems).
In the B2 or smaller market he has suggested violet systems, again possibly a valid suggestion but some cases thermal may offer advantages. It appears to me that Andy hasn’t considered all of the relevant factors. Such factors will vary from customer to customer but will include run length, plate productivity, CTP purchase cost, cost of ownership (operation), choice of output device (image quality), specialist applications etc etc. The choice of which CTP technology is right for a particular printer depends very much on the specific needs of that printer.
The key to a successful CTP implementation begins with getting technically unbiased advice on the different CTP technologies available. I am sure that all vendors agree no one CTP technology can be utilised for all printing applications this is why the key vendors offer such choice.
Armed with accurate information prospective CTP buyers can rise above the “white noise” of the biased and ultimately choose “The right technology for the right application.
Garry Muratore F.L.I.A
Marketing Manager
Agfa-Gavaert – Oceania Region
garry.muratore@agfa.com