Arts Printer Chooses Processless Printing Plates

Axis Printing, a B1 multi-colour sheet-fed printer based in Brighouse, West Yorkshire (UK) has chosen Fujifilm's Brillia HD Pro-T processless plate as its printing plate of choice.

Axis Printing, a B1 multi-colour sheet-fed printer based in Brighouse, West Yorkshire (UK) has chosen Fujifilm's Brillia HD Pro-T processless plate as its printing plate of choice.

The plates are being imaged on a Screen Platerite 8600 platesetter.

Established last August, the company is involved in print work in the arts sector, with customers including Opera North, Newcastle Theatre Royal and Northern Ballet Theatre.

David Affleck, managing director at Axis Printing, commented: "When setting up the company we were conscious that we wanted to install and use as many 'green' technologies as we could.

The environment is a key issue to Axis and Fuji's plate is not only the most environmentally friendly on the market but it offers no production compromises.

As well as having the best product to suit our needs, Fuji was very forward thinking and positive in identifying a product that fitted the needs of a new company." Simon Wood, repro manager at Axis Printing, continued: "The Fuji Pro-T plate benefits us in a number of ways.

Although the specification of the plate is 100,000 impressions, we have some jobs with run lengths in excess of that and the plate is performing extremely well.

On press, once developed, the plate performs just like a conventional plate, which has been excellent for our press minders." And he added: "There was a short learning curve for the minders and, importantly, no changes were required to the press environment.

Pro-T has performed just as Fuji promised us at Ipex 2006 and we only have positive comments about it.

Customer service has been first rate with Fuji very willing to help us during set-up and really prompt whenever we had any queries." Fuji's Brillia HD Pro-T is claimed to be a true processless plate in that it needs no chemistry or gumming and can be imaged using the same power as Fuji's existing, market leading, thermal processed plate at 120mJ per square centimetre, resulting in the same production speeds.

Said to be compatible with most thermal (830nm) plate setters and approved for one per cent - 99 per cent at 200lines per inch (lpi) conventional, 300lpi hybrid and FM screening, Brillia HD Pro-T is a non-ablative plate that carries a latent image with contrast, allowing visual inspection after imaging.

Back to top