The upstream of the CTP plate industry chain mainly includes aluminum coils, photosensitive adhesives, etc. Changes in production costs in the aluminum processing industry and non-ferrous metal prices directly affect plate production costs. The purchase price of aluminum coils includes electrolytic aluminum, processing costs, and a certain profit, and its price is mainly affected by changes in aluminum prices; the CTP plate industry is a subdivision of printing equipment - prepress equipment - printing plates in the printing industry. The CTP plate industry is the material basis for printing activities. Therefore, the development of the entire printing industry has a direct promotion effect on the demand for printing plates. The development of the printing industry in commercial printing, newspaper printing, packaging printing, book printing, and other fields, as well as the introduction of CTP technology, have an important impact on the sales of CTP plates.
Direct-to-plate technology has the following typical characteristics:
- Direct-to-plate making marks the complete digitization of the prepress workflow
The printing plate is not only the final result of prepress processing but also the dividing line between prepress and printing. The prepress technology before the emergence of direct plate-making only realized the digitization of part of the prepress workflow and still required the intervention of analog operations. Direct plate making realizes the direct conversion of digital pages to printing plates, no longer requiring any analog operation intervention, and is a completely digital process.
- Direct plate-making greatly improves plate-making efficiency and quality.
Because there is no need for complicated operations such as imposition, copying, and printing, direct plate-making has higher efficiency and speed. At the same time, because the variable factors in the plate-making process have been reduced to a minimum, direct plate-making can achieve higher plate-making quality.
- Direct plate-making has higher economic benefits
Direct plate making no longer requires the use of silver salt photosensitive film and corresponding equipment and consumables, building a "silver"-free pre-press production process, with lower overall costs and higher economic benefits.
Due to the above-mentioned advantages, direct plate making has experienced tremendous development in the past decade or so, with the number of installed machines rising sharply and the application fields continuing to expand. Over time, direct platemaking will eventually replace all other plate-making methods and become the most dominant technology in prepress production this century. Direct plate making is currently in a stage of vigorous development. New technologies and systems are constantly emerging, and there are many systems, showing a situation of "a hundred flowers blooming and a hundred schools of thought contending".
Huida Print-All Technology company is an advanced and professional manufacturer of printing plates, mainly selling CTP, CTCP, and PS plates as well as offering ODM/OEMs, especially for the offset. For more information, please click the official website link here: https://www.huidaoffsetplate.com/.