Artwork Systems concentric screening

Artwork Systems Group N.V., a leading company in professional pre-press software, reports positive customer reviews of its new Concentric Screening technology.

Concentric Screening is the third major halftone screening technology innovation in almost 150 years, preceded only by the invention of the conventional halftone dot and the stochastic screen.

Hal Hinderliter, Director of the Graphic Communication Institute at Cal Poly, says, "Other screening technologies were designed to reduce visible artifacts; while Concentric goes to the core, fundamental problem of reducing dot gain." How is Concentric Screening Revolutionary? Artwork Systems' new Concentric Screening is a revolutionary halftone dot technology that divides the conventional round dot into thin concentric rings.

These rings limit ink film thickness on the offset plate, thereby providing greater stability on press and increased color saturation.

Printers are able to increase-even double-screen rulings without experiencing the traditional problems of mottle, dot gain, and variability typically associated with high screen rulings.

Proven Effectiveness in Many Applications Concentric Screening has proven its effectiveness in every major segment of offset printing including commercial, publication, newspaper and packaging.

Printers who have experienced Concentric Screening say that this new generation of screening has all the benefits of second generation FM combined with the printability, ease of use, and smoothness of conventional AM screening.

Concentric Screening is available with the Nexus and Odystar workflows from Artwork Systems.

Thinking 'Inside the Dot' Mark Samworth, Vice President of Technology for Artwork Systems said: "The conventional halftone dot was invented in the late 1800's and has remained virtually unchanged in basic geometry ever since.

While every external dot shape has been attempted, no change to internal shape had ever been tried.

The internal shape on all dots has been 'solid.' Concentric Screening is the first halftone dot that uses a different internal shape.

It's the world's first 'non-solid' halftone dot.

With Concentric Screening, the printing world can now 'think inside the dot'." What customers are saying Perry Judd's According to Ed Bacsik, VP, Division Manager for Perry Judd's, one of the six largest graphic communication companies serving the Publication and Catalog markets in the United States, Concentric Screening has positively impacted its vast operations.

Perry Judd's has printing facilities located in Baraboo, WI; Spencer, IA; and Strasburg VA, as well as a central prepress facility in Madison, WI serving all three of its printing facilities using state of the art digital prepress services.

Its broad press equipment platform includes the industry's most modern M3000, M2000, M1000 presses manufactured by Goss/Heidelberg, and also runs Baker Perkins G14 and Hantscho Mark 14 presses for special applications.

The Spencer, IA facility is now over 80% Concentric in production.

"Over the last six months, Perry Judd's has successfully used Artwork's Concentric Screening when printing on both number 3 and 4 paper grade papers.

We intend to expand the range of paper upon which we use this screening on in the future," says Bacsik.

"Our experience with Concentric has been very positive! We are printing 200lpi Concentric screens, which have the appearance of a 250lpi normal screen, on high speed web presses at 2,600 feet per minute.

This higher resolution we see provides us with advantages for our customers.

Specifically, we see more detail, smoother flesh tones and tints and much cleaner colors in the mid tones.

Reproduction is, in many cases, noticeably superior to both conventional AM and FM Screening." "Perry Judd's believes Artwork Systems' Concentric Screening is unique.

It enables us to provide a superior printed product relative to other screening available in the marketplace.".

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