Kodak pre-press systems improve speed and accuracy

Photomec Elgg has streamlined improved the speed and accuracy with Kodak systems for its pre-press workflow, with Kodak's Insite Pre-press Portal System a crucial component of its set-up.

Kodak said that approximately 80 per cent of Photomec Elgg's revenue comes from packaging printing companies (flexo and offset), with the remainder predominantly derived from offset printing businesses.

The company also offers a range of bespoke services, including test forms and printing plates produced on behalf of printing press manufacturers for their internal tests, customer demonstrations and machine approvals.

In 2001, Photomec Elgg upgraded from photo-mechanical offset print form production to CTP using Kodak's Trendsetter 800 Quantum platesetter.

The eight-page format thermal CTP System is still going strong, providing a standard print form service and CTP back-up for several sheet offset printing companies.

In April 2009, Photomec Elgg bought a Kodak Thermoflex Mid II platesetter for imaging on LAMS flexo printing plates, taking the company into print form production for flexo printing.

The decision to implement the Kodak system was spurred by more stringent quality requirements from a major customer.

Heinz Kellenberger, managing director of Photomec Elgg, said: 'The challenge involved converting to multi-coloured screen printing, with five colours plus opaque white for pastry bags, consisting of a combination of paper and transparent film and with printed designs extending beyond the two types of printing materials.

It was just the right time for flexo CTP.

It meant we'd also benefit from printing block production for label printing.

For packaging orders, Photomec Elgg typically receives single-use PDFs for processing.

The next steps involve adapting the packaging - subject to the stamping die mould and glue flap clearances - and converting the colors to the actual process colours for the printing process; overfilling settings; applying the secondary white colour or creating forms for custom finishing or in-line film finishing.

Photomec Elgg images flexo plates in 1.14mm and 2.84mm thicknesses on the Thermoflex Mid II platesetter, which is suitable for formats of up to 1,016mm x 1,200mm.

The company uses plates measuring 900mm x 1,200mm, and that is said to ensure best use of this format by assembling RIPped data from several colour separations for a job or several jobs to be produced in the same plate thicknesses, using Kodak's TIFF front end software's TIFF assembler .

Kellenberger explained: 'We now have a great deal of Kodak digital technology in-house.

Reducing the number of sources makes everything run so much more smoothly, so it makes sense that the Kodak Prinergy workflow system governs all output processes.

The production workflow is connected to the internet via Kodak's Insite Pre-ress Portal system, which Photomec Elgg uses to provide its customers and with online access to the production process.

The system enables customers to upload data at any time from anywhere with an internet connection.

The web portal is particularly useful for ensuring efficient workflows with customers that are based in other countries.

In addition, Kodak's Smart Review System has proven to be an invaluable tool for checking individual files or entire print forms, and has improved production speed and accuracy.

Back to top