The latest technology

Over recent years the major advances in technology for most commercial printing companies have undoubtedly taken place at the ‘front end’. In fact, the modern Pre-Press department bears no resemblance whatever to that of its predecessor – gone are the cameras, print down frames, film processors, assembly tables, scalpels and rolls of ruby lith. In their place are wonderful boxes of wizardry that even Merlin would have been proud of.

These ‘magic boxes’, however, demand to be treated with the utmost respect or they will seek out vengeance – differences in colour reproduction, inconsistencies in text flows and fonts, or even worse! Yes, we have all felt the wrath of the magic boxes. Battle scarred printers from Lands End to John O’Groats still shiver and run for cover at the sound of the word REPRINT.

So what do we do to avoid this?

• First of all we employ highly skilled people
• Then we ensure we are compatible with all our clients by constantly updating our reprographics studio with all the latest software including Quark, Adobe InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, PageMaker and FreeHand
• Next our Compose Express Workflow processes all jobs automatically enabling us to pre-flight files for errors in separations, colours, images, etc, and ensure reliable rip processing
• Then onto the automatic imposition module for accurate planning of pages ready for proofing
• Using the same ripped data, our Star Proof system recreates the actual dot patterns and rosettes of the original separations giving remarkably colour accurate proofs that can then be matched on press
• Once the proof is approved, the same file is then sent to our CTP system. This is a chemistry-free thermal ablative process, imaging daylight safe Anthem® plates which require no baking, gumming or chemical processing. A simple water wash is all that is needed after imaging to prepare these plates for on press.