Recent prospects of the hottest digital color prin

The recent outlook of digital color printing

this article was written by Michael h Bruno, an American printing information expert. It is based on the market demand from the middle and recent period of the last century to 2010. It tells the technological evolution and outlook of all aspects related to digital color printing except traditional printing, which constitutes the integration of technological development and has certain information reference value

preface

printing, one of the most important inventions in the world, is facing the fourth revolution. This can also be said to be the most important change in the evolution process of 550 years

the earliest change took place about 350 years after the invention of Gutenberg's printing method. At first, Gutenberg's printing method was just a combination of lettering ink and improved grape press. Until around 1800, printing was always done by hand. At this time, the industrial revolution took place and the process of mechanization began. At the same time, sunnafield invented lithography technology, which made imaging technology easier

the second reform was initiated by the introduction of photographic technology around 1850. According to the introduction of photography, new plate making methods called photographic plate making, such as photographic lithography, photographic relief, photographic intaglio, collotype, and so on, have emerged

the third change occurred around 1950 after the Second World War. Electromechanical engineering and computers have promoted the evolution of manual operation into automation, which gives printing the opportunity to change from a process perspective to a scientific track

the fourth revolution is digital color printing, which began around 1980. According to this, printing has completely moved to the scientific track. The reason for this is that digital color printing is the only technology that turns visible information into hardware among all kinds of multimedia output

digital printing began in the 1970s because many technologies essential to digital printing were developed and introduced in the 1970s. Video display terminals and OCR are indispensable to the progress of electronic phototypesetting. They are both products of the 1970s. At the same time, point generators and digital scanners have also developed

the ratio of the earliest square to its ratio in processing variable intelligence is the elastic modulus formula. It was introduced by energy conversion division (shinsky). It was the earliest laser printer, but it failed because of the lack of economic support. At that time, CK company published the inkjet printing machine, and then Mead digital company introduced it in 1972. In 1974, laser plate making was published by lasergraph (relief) and eocom (lithography)

from 1976, Kalle and ChemCo published electrostatic plates for high sensitivity laser plate making. In the same year, logescan published the method of making intermediate films at the same time outside the edition. This has become the earliest achievement of laser stripping carving transfer technology. Similarly, destdata published a platemaker with visible laser that can be used for satellite communication

in 1978, Xerox developed 9700 intelligent copier and IBM also introduced 6670. These are the earliest products of laser printers

in 1979, Scitex published the response 300 device, which became the first conversational high-function color prepress system (CEPs)

by 1980, the devices of hell and iscitex, namely the helioklishograph of hell and the prepress system of Scitex, were combined, and the computer made plates directly on the drum, making CTC a success. This is the earliest achievement that CTP or CTC can be introduced into ordinary printing methods

by 1985, a great leap forward had taken place in the field of digital color printing, namely the introduction of typesetter. This is the beginning of the development of imagesetter in 1988. Accordingly, device independent pre press appears. This is the system composed of Adobe's postscript page expression language, Aldus' PageMaker software, Apple Macintosh computer, apple laser writer, etc. Soon, it developed into DTP. This can be regarded as the foundation for the prepress of digital color printing

in 1990, drupa published the necessary technology for realizing CTP, that is, Hoechst Celanese (now Agfa) used N-90 and Gerber's platesetter to make a practical demonstration

at print 91 exhibition in 1991, Heidelberg company performed CTP on the gto-di printing machine made by the company and the edition of prestek and introduced it

at IPEX 93, Indigo's E-print 1000 digital color printer and Agfa chrompress loaded with Xeikon engine performed ctpaper

to drupa 90, there were only two demonstrations of CTP digital color printing for lithography by laser imagers of platesetter. Even if the current prosperity of halogenated spandex industry still exists, there is a certain variable: silver coated on metal substrate and dye sensitized photosensitive resin

by 1997, another 6 plate making technologies had participated. Electrostatic plates based on paper, film, metal plates, etc., and local monochrome printing plates that don't care much about monochrome and registration accuracy, are composed of two layers, each of which needs two kinds of treatment of composite coating coated plates. They are the stripping version using thermal sensitive laser, the stripping and transfer version using thermal sensitive laser, and the thermally crosslinked version, monochrome, local monochrome printing, 4-color printing, untreated inkjet for high fidelity printing, etc

using visible light technology

using electrophotographic plates for printing high-quality products, although it can not meet the resolution, it is still widely adopted by the market. The main manufacturer of platesetter, plates and consumables is printware. The plates using silver halide have produced polyester substrates since 1982, and have been used in monochrome and local monochrome printing

DuPont/howson silverlith (now called SDB) was the earliest plate coated with silver halide for digital printing, which was introduced in 1991. It is a plate with high resolution and high sensitivity, with a printing resistance of 150000 sheets

in 1993, AGPA published lithostar, which has high sensitivity to visible light. It is a plate with a metal substrate. It can make plates in a vacuum printer or by using digital laser imaging. Mitsubishi imaging company has introduced silver digiplate alpha red with metal substrate. There are two kinds of 8 mm and 2 mm thick, both of which are exposed to 670nm laser

the silver halide plates described above are accompanied by chemical treatment, so special treatment of waste is required

photosensitive resin plates made by dye sensitization, plates with medium exposure speed. The resin whose photosensitive wavelength domain is located in the ultraviolet region can move the sensitivity to the visible region with the help of dye sensitization

as representative plates, there are anitec -horsell (electronic version), Kodak (argon), 3M (Viking), Hoechst Celanese (now AGPA) n -90, etc. There are also versions of citiplate, Fuji and Mitsubishi that accelerate the implementation of cleaner production processes such as hydrogenation and reduction, continuous nitrification, and 3 sulfur oxide/western lithoplate, polychrome, etc. These plates are based on post baking to improve the printing resistance. The reason is that most of them are carried out by aqueous solution

the first product of hybrid mask coated plate was the FNH version published by Fuji in 1980. By 1993, polychrome introduced it under the name of CTX. Fuji revived the plate in 1995. The mask layer of these plates is silver halide layer, and the surface can be digitally exposed. Under the mask layer is a common photosensitive resin layer, which becomes the image part at the time of printing

in order to produce double-layer metal plates by digital imaging, PDI, the manufacturer of double-layer metal plates, uses silver halide in the mask layer. Where silver halide masks are used, secondary chemical treatment is required to discharge hazardous wastes from the mask layer. As products that do not need post-treatment, inkjet technology and heat sensing technology have been developed, and polychrome and Fuji are their main developers

thermal technology

due to the development of low-cost and high output laser diodes, the use of thermal technology has risen

advantages of using heat:

(1) it can be processed in a bright room

(2) it will not be imaged if it does not exceed a certain limit area. Therefore, the image is bright without dot edge blur, thus obtaining an image with large contrast, And almost no point of increase

(3) there is little or no need for post-treatment

current heat sensing technology and ergonomic equipment design use the following three methods:

(1) laser stripping

(2) laser stripping transfer, that is, transfer from the plate as a donor to the plate as a acceptor

(3) use the generated oxygen to crosslink the technology used by lasergraph in 1974, Until 1991, prestek completed the imaging on Heidelberg gto-di printing machine with the help of spark discharge. In 1993, pearl established thermal imaging, and omni has been applied to web rotary machines by Heidelberg Speedmaster Di, omni Adast press, nil Peter, etc., as well as CTP devices using pearl dry, pearl wet, etc

source: printing art, 2005, issue 7, total issue 259, author: Ding Yi