The News Journal in Westchester County – Rockland County, N.Y., added a fourth computer-to-plate system from Agfa unit Autologic.

The newspaper’s 3850 unit will join three other similar systems the daily purchased last year, said Gerry Riley, vice president of production.

Each 3850 unit can process up to 120 plates per hour and has automatic plate loading, positioning and interleaf paper removal. The 3850, which uses a FD-YAG (green) laser, operates in full daylight.

In addition to the 3850 systems, The News-Journal also has two Agfa Polaris violet-laser units used to produce USA Today.

Riley said he expects the CTP systems will yield cost savings of about 20 percent, even though the cost of the plates used to feed the systems will increase. The bulk of the savings will come from the elimination of film costs, Riley said.

All told, Riley said the newspaper will spend about $50,000 for the 200,000 digital plates it will consume each year.

Pages will be imaged on photopolymer plates supplied by Agfa. The 450,000-impression plate is designed for medium press runs.

In addition to the platesetters, the daily also purchased associated management, processing, bending and proofing software engineered to work with the system.

Meantime, South Korea’s national newspaper, The Kukmin Daily, became the first printer on the Korean peninsula to deploy CTP.

The newspaper bought three Polaris XDV CTP systems along with a Nela online punch/bender system.

The newspaper made the switch to CTP to meet “demanding press schedules,” according to Samuel Minje Cho, vice president, Kukmin Daily.

The Polaris XDV is a violet-laser, double-wide flatbed platesetter able to output more than 175 1W2L-format plates, commonly used throughout Korea. The system can house more than 3,000 plates of varying sizes, according to Autologic.