White Papers
Key insights for informed business decisions
Agfa’s engineers bring innovative technologies to the market each year, while our global network of business specialists closely monitor marketplace trends—all in an effort to bring you the knowledge you need to make smart business decisions. Our white papers provide in-depth examinations of the latest technical innovations, with key insights and explanations you can use to make informed business decisions in an ever-changing marketplace.
Sign & Display
The applications where fabrics can be used are only limited by the imagination: indoor decoration, banners & flags, exhibition stands, etc.
More and more printers are incorporating digital fabrics printing into their product portfolio. Until recently digitally printed fabrics could only be produced via indirect (using transfer paper) or direct printing on fabrics using special textile inks (dye sublimation inks, acid dye inks, reactive dye inks, etc.). Due to technological breakthroughs in ink development, print heads, etc., UV curable inkjet printing has developed enormously in the past few years.
Chemistry-free plates
2007 will mark the year when the first chemistry-free violet plate technologies begin to emerge, the question for the newspaper industry is how much impact this technology will make. This white paper examines the plate technology; what it will offer and how newspaper printers will benefit.
The Future of Industrial Inkjet Printing
Today, digital printing is fast becoming the preferred method for short-run and variable-data applications. While toner-based systems, such as Xerox Docucolor™ currently dominate document and variable-data printing, inkjet systems such as Agfa’s :Dotrix Transcolor are gaining market share.
CtP Technology benchmarking
With various CTP technologies available from which to choose, claim and counter claim from the different suppliers has been both frequent and, at times, contradictory. Often these claims are not based on fact, rather they are based on the need of suppliers to position their own product range as the most attractive.
XM (Cross Modulated) Screening Technology
Eliminating film in the plate-making process has done more than shorten the workflow. Removing the intermediary image transfer has eliminated prepress registration errors and shortened press make-ready. These on-press improvements provided immediate benefits for the printer. Now that CtP technology has been widely implemented, customers are demanding higher print quality as well. CtP enables the use of higher screen rulings – a practical method to deliver the quality that customers now demand.
Understanding JDF
Any number of white papers exists on JDF (Job Definition Format). In fact just about every technology provider who has anything to do with print has published a white paper on the subject. Why? Because JDF is the door opener to the future.
ThermoFuse CtP
Just as computer-to-plate eliminated the variables that come with film imaging, processing and copying to plate, ThermoFuse technology now makes it possible to do away with any remaining variables resulting from conventional computer-to-plate imaging and processing. ThermoFuse, such as it is used in Agfa’s :Azura plate, is the next level of digital platemaking. There are no chemicals in the process. The laser and the laser only forms the printing image,
and nothing affects it after exposure.
CtP – Reviewing the trends
In Europe and North America CtP has become big business for the suppliers. For many printers, CtP is now definitely a case of ‘when’ rather than ‘if’. In some areas of the print market the majority of the printers have already gone CtP and some of the first generation CtP devices are already coming up for renewal.
