As the technology and quality behind flexographic printing climb to ever loftier heights, the plates, platesetters, proofers, sleeves and mounting tapes of the prepress area are keeping pace. The breakthrough products described here (among many others) exemplify the new world of automation and broader color gamuts that are enveloping the flexo scene.

EskoArtwork unveiled two new products at drupa 2008 last month in Düsseldorf, Germany—the DuPont Cyrel® Digital Imager Spark 4260 Auto flexo platesetter and Cyrel Digital Imager Advance Cantilever platesetter for sleeves.

With the Spark 4260, flexible-packaging platemaking trade shops and high-volume converters should realize an increase in productivity. Built for fully automated plateloading, imaging, and unloading, it becomes, according to Ian Hole, vice president/marketing development, “more or less the platemaking room. Three separate functions take place. These were traditionally done with three pieces of equipment, but now you simply strip off the protective coating, put the plate into the machine, and it all happens in the same device.

“The automatic platemaker is the evolution of digital flexo technology, and we will be offering even more automated technology. We back expose, image, and main expose—[reportedly] the first time this has been successfully done.”

Added automation tools reduce steps and remove potential sources of error. Able to process three full-size digital-flexo plates simultaneously, the Spark 4260 Auto primarily targets flexible-packaging and folding-carton markets. Four productivity levels are available. The Optics 80 fiber laser with multibeam optics permits high throughput at a maximum speed of up to 8.0 m/hr, with fully variable resolution imaging. A full-size 42 x 60-in. plate of any thickness can be imaged in 12 min. The 4260 was demonstrated at drupa with a plate coming out of the imager's “throat,” with the ability to immediately enter a bridge and go into a thermal processor.

The CDI Advance Cantilever platesetter for sleeves features a large-format, flexo-sleeve imager for the wide-web flex-pack market. Hole adds, “This is new—the largest sleeve and plate imager in the market. We've made cantilevers for more than 10 years now. The technology of sleeve imaging has changed; it used to be hoist and crane. With our new CDI, the cantilever is open-ended. You slide the sleeve onto the shaft, and the second end comes up to lock the sleeve in place. The CDI has the ability to image and simultaneously main-expose sleeves or plates up to 2 m wide.”

By imaging a full format (50 x 80-in plate) in 19 min, the platesetter matches the fastest plate processing equipment in the industry. SuperSkip technology moves the imager quickly over areas that don't require imaging. The drupa demo showed the Advance Cantilever in combination with the in-line, main UV-exposure unit.

“I think the emphasis of EskoArtwork in the digital-flexo part of our business is automation, ease of use, and speed,” says Hole. “Once imaging speed and quality were perfected, the next logical move was to automate.”

In further platemaking developments, Kodak has launched its Flexcel NX Digital Flexographic System with new technology that enables packaging printers and converters to achieve extremely high levels of quality, productivity, and stability, it says. (See sidebar below). “To be honest, this is the product every general manager hopes for once in his lifetime,” says John Cross, general manager of packaging production, prepress solutions for Kodak Graphics Communications Group.

The system, which also bowed commercially at drupa 2008, was one of three products to earn the Flexographic Pre-press Platemakers Association 2008 Technology Innovator of the Year award. Flexcel NX helps ensure stability and repeatability, in prepress and on press, providing gravure-class print quality on paper, paperboard, flexible film, foil and label stock, Cross says.

For flexo-print proofing tasks, Epson America's wide-format printers include Epson Stylus Pro 9880, which achieves higher levels of print quality with its new MicroPiezo® AMC™ printhead, an enhanced version of Epson UltraChrome K3 Ink™ technology and what Epson calls a radical new AccuPhoto™ HD screening technology, plus other advancements. The 9880 replaces the 9800, printing up to 44 in. wide.

Mark Radogna, group product manager, Professional Imaging, Epson America, says, “It is key in the converting market to generate a true-color contact proof. With this introduction, Epson will make it easier.”

UltraChrome K3™ ink technology is enhanced with Epson's new Vivid Magenta pigments that require only eight colors–cyan, Vivid Magenta, yellow, black, light cyan, Vivid Light Magenta, light black, and light light black–to raise quality levels for professional color and black-and-white prints. The new printhead, along with a new ink-repelling coating technology is said to reduce nozzle clogging.

A pack-print proofing system has been launched by Print Science. Pakproof uses a standard 8-color Epson printer with three ink cartridges removed [light cyan, light magenta and light light black] and replaced by orange, violet and green. With the modified ink set, the system has a color space 25 percent larger than that of the standard UltraChrome K3 ink set; it can print all 12 Pantone primary colors and the vast majority of other Pantone colors, the supplier says.

Pakproof uses a method developed by Print Science to create multicolor ICC profiles. During calibration, orange, violet, and green are treated in the same way as standard CMY. The extra colors can be used to produce smooth color blends, vignettes and degradees.

Company president John Weissberg explains, “Inkjet has almost taken over the proofing world. In the past, the printer had to show a proof to a customer and explain that on the 'real thing' it would look [somewhat] different. What we did was conceive three out of eight replacements, very pure colors.

“Inkjet has killed old methods; it's very fast compared to traditional methods. It seems that every system claims they can hit most of the colors. We do 95 percent; we can print most of the wilder colors–no metallics. Finally, the market has a low-cost alternative to [high-end] proofing systems.”

To take advantage of new high-speed flexo presses, 3M has introduced two series of Cushion-Mount™ Plus Tapes. The medium-soft combination 13 Series and the medium combination 15 Series reportedly bounce less on faster presses and print cleaner fine-type reverses and richer halftones. Tapes feature Easy Mount Adhesive with microchannels to allow air to release and eliminate bubble problems for easier, virtually air-free mounting. Adhesive removes cleanly from both plate and cylinder, says 3M.

“Globally, we see many printers upgrading their operations through the purchase of new 7- to 10-color presses capable of running at 1,800 fpm,” says 3M's Gerald Vogler, business development manager for Converter Markets, IATD. “We also see printers transitioning from analog to digital plates or evaluating solventless plates. For the printers to maximize the benefit of these new investments, we recommend that they characterize their presses with a range of densities of platemounting tapes. In response to these [particular] customer trends, 3M introduced the yellow 13-Series and purple 14-Series. Both are being well received in the global market.”

Jason Nelson, corporate prepress manager at OEC Graphics Inc., sees changes in the industry, noting that over the last couple of years PDFs have continued to integrate further into flexographic-printing workflows. Now a supplied PDF can be preflighted, separated, proofed and ripped to either a TIFF or LEN format for plating without entering into a Postscript workflow, he says. Processing a PDF natively helps make workflows more efficient, while it eliminates conversion differences because the file is not flattened to be sent through a Postscript workflow.

“There has been a big push in the industry to work on PDF files within the Adobe applications that they were originally produced,” says Nelson. “Vendors like EskoArtwork are selling product lines that integrate with Adobe software. This philosophy is much different because in the past a PDF would have been converted into their proprietary file format for separation and then processed through a flattened Postscript workflow.”

On the distribution front, Anderson & Vreeland signed an agreement with POLYWEST Sleeve Systems, a manufacturer of flexo sleeves. With a 20-year history of introducing new materials that improve sleeve quality, consistency, ink and solvent resistance, and sleeve durability, POLYWEST products will be sold and serviced by A&V throughout the US.

According to A&V business director Drew Elisius, “We're excited about the developing relationship between our two companies. We see the synergy of our strengths of 40+ flexo-focused salesmen, nine distribution centers, and a dynamic customer base, coupled with POLYWEST's ever-evolving sleeve system as a winning combination for our companies and, most importantly, for the customer.”