Prepress
EasyDot: The New Plate Reader from Centurfax
Thursday 06. May 2010 - Centurfax and Ripware, the names synonymous with the famous and one-time market-leading CCDot plate reading device, have announced a new development for that same market with the introduction of EasyDot, a hand held and highly portable plate reader.
Hardware and software development of the new EasyDot plate-reader product have once again come from the Centurfax team, whilst Ripware will bring its sales and marketing expertise to bear with regard to the distribution of the product.
Originally launched some twelve years ago, the original Centurfax CCDot was born during the infancy of computer-to-plate (CtP) technology. It was designed to offer a quality control solution for this then fledging sector. Prior to CtP, pre-press departments had been used to checking the image on film before its subsequent exposure to the pre-sensitised printing plate. With CtP there is no intermediate stage, and therefore nothing physical to examine, hence the development and the popularity of an electronic device capable of reading the dots on the plate. The introduction of CCDot, along with a number of competitive products, led to the introduction of the generic term “dotmeter”.
The success of the CCDot attracted much industry attention, and in 2002, following further significant sales success at the IPEX show of that year, American-based quality control specialist X-Rite tabled a bid for the product, tempting the original developers to sell the manufacturing rights.
The issue of plate quality, of course, has never gone away. Whilst CtP hardware and plates have become much more stable and reliable, there is still a requirement to establish definitive information about the image on the plate – an issue that has been recognised within the specification for the ISO 12647-2 colour standard.
Paul Foster, Managing Director of Ripware, takes up the story: “The dotmeter is still an essential piece of equipment in the pre-press department. Issues do still arise with regard to plate quality and batch consistency, and with things going wrong in the plate creation process. The pre-press department needs to be in a position to say unequivocally that the plates are 100% correct. The simple, regular checking procedures carried out with a dotmeter can save hours of time in press downtime and fault finding. That wasted time, of course, can equal many thousands of pounds.
“Dotmeters most certainly havent gone away, but both Centurfax and Ripware believe that an opportunity currently exists for a new, competitively priced, easy to use product to take on existing devices in the market. Firstly, the specifications being produced for ISO12647-2 dictate the use of a suitable plate reading device, and, secondly, there are upwards of 500 CCDot products still in use in the UK industry alone. These, we believe, are likely to need replacing in the very near future, due both to wear-and-tear and to further developments in the capabilities of dotmeters.”
Focusing on the tough trading conditions at this moment in time, Paul Foster added: “Quality is still the key differentiator in the market. The regular use of a dotmeter to check plate quality not only helps to ensure good production standards throughout the print process, it can also help to keep wastage down to a minimum.”
EasyDot provides the same easy, one-click use as its predecessor, without the need to connect to a PC or Mac. Initially the device will be released to read plates only, though it is envisaged that paper and film reading will soon also be available as an option.
End user pricing for EasyDot is expected to be £995. A special introductory price has been created for existing CCDot users interested in trading back their older units for a new EasyDot of £795.