Agfa Gevaert  ECRM  UV  prepress  printing - sheetfed  CTP 
Violet CTP has come a long way since Agfa started the violet revolution, writes Andrew Tribute. The violet CTP plate revolution was started by Agfa, and for quite some time Agfa was the only serious supplier of such plates. It was also the leading supplier of violet diode enabled platesetters, however there were a number of other companies supplying such devices. Initially because of the low laser power of early violet diode platesetters, only highly sensitive silver based plates were available. Violet photopolymer plates did not become available until some years after Agfa launched its violet silver plates. This meant that up to the Ipex exhibition in 2002, Agfa largely had the violet plate market to itself. In that time Agfa established violet CTP technology as a viable alternative to the then dominant thermal plate technology. With only one major plate supplier, and with only silver plates being available, the violet CTP market was always going to be a secondary market. Silver plates were not the preferred choice of many printers because of environmental and run length concerns.

In the past three years the situation has changed. Violet diode imaging has moved from being an alternate technology to being a mainstream technology. It is achieving a substantial market share of the platesetters sold, and similarly achieving an increasing share of the plate supply market. Why has this happened? The reason is that the plate supply situation changed in that further suppliers entered the market. All of these suppliers offered violet sensitised photopolymer plates. In this the key player was not Agfa, who had introduced their own photopolymer plate, but was Fujifilm. Agfa’s photopolymer plate was largely aimed at the newspaper market, where Agfa was the dominant supplier of platesetters. Fuji’s initial plate, the Brillia LP-NV, was predominantly aimed at the commercial printing market. In late 2004 Kodak also entered the violet plate market, and targeted the newspaper sector, with commercial printing becoming available later. This further confirmed the importance of the violet plate market. The "Big Three" are not the only suppliers of violet imaged plates, and some other smaller suppliers have also entered this market.

It is my perception, but I have no detailed figures to confirm this, that Fuji has established itself as the key player in the commercial printing violet plate market. In this it is like Agfa, both a plate supplier and a supplier of violet diode enabled platesetters. These platesetters are all made by the Fujifilm Electronic Imaging (FFEI) subsidiary. FFEI has just announced the manufacture of its 1,000th violet CTP system, this being the latest technology Fuji Luxel V-6 machine. While Fuji does not disclose market share figures, it is my understanding that in the B1 (8-page) format market in the UK it is now the leading supplier. I also understand that it is achieving substantial success in North America in the B1 and B2 markets. One of the reasons claimed for the success of Fuji’s violet technologies is that it has a lower cost of ownership than that of thermal CTP. In fact, at drupa in 2004 Fuji claimed that its experience of selling both violet and thermal systems and plates showed that thermal cost an extra £1.00 (A$2.40) per square feet of plate imaged than violet technology. This was brought about by the substantially lower costs of maintenance and plate processing of violet photopolymer based systems.

In the three years since FFEI launched its Luxel V Series CTP engines it has established itself among the fastest violet commercial platesetters. One of the reasons for this is the patented dual laser technology that is offered as an option. This is a technology first developed for FFEI CTF units, and it enables high productivity with high quality, without having to run components such as the spinning mirror at such high speeds as competitors. The fastest Luxel V-9600 and Vx-9600 B1 format units run at up to 43 plates/hour at 1,200dpi, and at 32 plates/hour at 2,400dpi.

Fujifilm is very committed to the growth of violet plates and CTP. It has been upgrading its four global plate-manufacturing facilities around the world for substantial expansion. The company has recently spent over US$200 million worldwide on enhanced facilities for photopolymer plate production. This included a new facility for North America at Greenwood, South Carolina, and upgrading is taking place at the European facility at Tilburg in Holland. It is also constructing at plate plant in Suzhou in China for both conventional and CTP plates. This worldwide expansion is for both thermal and violet CTP plates. Fujifilm is also a leading supplier of thermal CTP plates.

I stated earlier that Fuji had mainly targeted the commercial printing market for its violet CTP technologies. Last month at the Newstec newspaper exhibition in the UK it announced a second violet plate. The current Fuji Brillia LP-NV is mainly for the commercial printing market, whereas the new Brillia LP-NNV is specifically designed for newspaper printing. At this time Fuji has no newspaper platesetters of its own manufacture, and it works closely in certain territories with certain suppliers of CTP engines, such as ECRM. It has, however, modified one of its Luxel V Series engines for a newspaper customer with a higher speed spinner and faster plate handling to achieve high plate throughput. FFEI is non-committal whether it has plans to follow the approach taken by both Creo and Screen in this market. That is to convert a commercial CTP device to handle two newspaper plates concurrently for enhanced performance, specifically for the requirements of the newspaper market. My guess is they will do this.

There is no doubt that violet CTP has moved into a position of challenging thermal in all markets apart from Very Large Format (VLF) units. Despite what certain thermal only suppliers will say, for most markets there is no difference in quality of output. Some of the new screening approaches, such as Agfa’s :Sublima and FujiÂ’s Co-Res and Taffeta, match the quality of almost all thermal approaches. In reality the question for most purchasers of CTP should be on throughput, cost of ownership, environmental issues and preferred suppliers, rather than on what is really now a non-issue, namely thermal or violet technology.