ORLANDO, Fla. — Among the most anticipated events at Nexpo last month were the debuts of no-process and chemistry-free plates, from Kodak and Agfa, respectively. The vendors drew crowds to their booths to view the plate technologies about which there’s been buzz in the industry.

Kodak said it is already testing its no-process plate at several locations in the United States and Canada.

The technology, based on Kodak’s commercial ThermalDirect plate, was designed to shorten the prepress time required for newspapers, thereby reducing costs.

Photo: Newspapers & Technology
Kodak showed Nexpo attendees its no-process plate, which is currently in testing at several U.S. newspapers.
 

“Kodak’s non-process thermal plate removes steps from the platemaking cycle, saves floor space and money required for plate processors, and eliminates the need to buy, store, handle and dispose of chemistry,” said Jack Knadjian, vice president, market segment  publishing for Kodak.

The weekly Dover (Del.) Post is among papers testing the new plate.

“We put plates directly on the press after they come off of the Kodak Trendsetter News platesetter and away we go,” said Curt Garrison, pressroom manager. “I’ve observed no differences in quality between our standard thermal digital plates and the Kodak non-process plates.”

Garrison said his newspaper had conducted blind tests with its publishers and quality control staff and no differences were detected.

Bruce Davidson, Kodak’s regional prepress consumables leader for Kodak’s Graphic Communications Group in the Americas told Newspapers & Technology that the plate is aimed mainly at smaller and mid-size newspapers where space restrictions are an issue.

The St. Joseph (Mo.) News-Press and Galveston County (Texas) Daily News are also testing the plate. The News-Press also uses Kodak’s Staccato screening app, but Davidson said that stochastic screening is not a requirement.

“The [plates] cleaned up really well on the press,” said Tim Kirschner, the News-Press’ prepress manager.

Photo: Newspapers & Technology
Agfa’s imaged chemistry-free plate.
 

The Galveston County Daily News’ imaging manager, Robin Lashway, said the paper ran 30,000 copies during testing with “no signs of wear at all.”

“The fountain solution is just water, and it softens up the coating that’s on the plate and the paper actually takes the coating away,” Lashway said. “There’s no contamination to the fountain solution (and) I thought it was incredible the way it goes from a light-sensitive plate to a normal offset plate.”

Agfa, meantime, unveiled its line of chemistry-free violet laser polymer digital plates, based on its N-91v technology and slated to be available next year. The plates are non-ablative and produce a strong image contrast with no press contamination on press runs up to 150,000, Agfa said.

Agfa told Newspapers & Technology the plate will target the entry-level newspaper market

“Agfa’s violet chemistry-free plates provide newspaper publishers with many clear advantages,” said Sheila Nysko, Agfa’s business development manager of newspaper systems in North America. “Compared to processless plates, Agfa’s violet chemistry-free plates have a strong image contrast.

“Newspapers today don’t want to use their presses as processors. These plates deliver the highest quality image the first time and every time — and do so while being simpler, cleaner and greener.”