Are we still printing with film?
Author: admin
As a matter of fact, yes we do. Although most of our printing plates are using CTP, some jobs are still using film to develop plates.
CTP (Computer to Plate) is fast, clean and precise method to develop printing plates. Film is slow to develop and layout, has dust and tape shadow, produces variable result depending on temperature and humidity. Film may also lose small details during development. Film is so imperfect but why are we still using film to develop plates?
First of all, film has the advantage of wet proof. People can wet-proof the color using the same paper as in print. It is very essential for high quality requirement from certain oversea clients. Once we have the wet proof, we are confident that our printing color can be at least 90% match. It is something that digital color proof cannot archive after so many years of development. It is especially important when printing non-glossy art paper as the color may shift a lot.
CTP’s digital proof is not using the same coloring system as printing (CMYK) so that the color space is different. It can only use some special high quality ink jet paper. As a result, the color will never be the same as in printing. Even some printers can emulate the effect of matt or woodfree paper, digital color proof will never be very close to the printing result when using non-glossy paper. Also, digital color proof does not have pantone color, such as Gold, silver, and florescent colors.
Recently, people have start using CTP plates for wet proof. It eliminates the need for film and has all the advantages of web proof. However, after the CTP plates are used for wet proof, even if there is one word updated in any one of the pages, the whole set has to be re-output. Update content after color proof is very common nowadays so that the print job will need almost 2 sets of CTP plates. One for web proof and one for printing. When using film, any one page can be updated without affecting the others.
Film has other advantages. Certain client likes the effect of film printing as it has more color depth in it. Just like the analogy with vacuum tube amplifiers, it is a matter of taste and preference. Client also has a peace of mind when reprinting books. It has happened before that the output center has pulled out an older version of file for output. The client has made multiple changes during the last print and the data center is confused. With film, we will keep only the latest version of film.
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