The hottest Quanzhou Evening News Agency adopts CT

Quanzhou Evening News Agency's experience in using CTP technology to improve the quality and timeliness of newspaper publishing

with the advent of the new century, the newspaper industry is developing more and more rapidly. One of the obvious features is that a large number of newspapers continue to expand their editions, changing black-and-white editions to color editions, and changing single-sided color to double-sided color, which greatly increases the pressure on many newspapers that still use traditional prepress technology. Quanzhou Evening News and its subordinate media now have a daily circulation of nearly 300000 copies, and about 80 plates need to be made every day. If the traditional prepress plate making equipment is used and 3-4 operators are equipped to work hard, especially when there are many foreign advertising films and the workload of manual plate making is heavy, it takes about 4 hours to complete the plate making task, which seriously affects the timeliness of newspaper distribution, so that some counties and cities cannot see the newspaper of the day. Facing the new situation, new situation and new requirements, only by introducing new technologies and adopting new processes to shorten the publishing time, improve the timeliness and improve the printing quality of newspapers, can newspapers survive in the increasingly competitive newspaper market. Development, and computer direct plate making technology (CTP) can just meet this requirement

computer direct plate making system is a comprehensive multidisciplinary technology industry. It is a digital production process integrating precision machinery and optical technology, electronic technology, color digital image technology, computer and software technology, new printing plate and material technology, automation technology and network technology. Computer direct plate making technology refers to the plate making technology that uses direct plate making equipment to directly record the layout information after computer typesetting on the printing plate that can be directly used for printing after rip. And photographic plate making in the 1950s. This is the reason why manufacturers cut corners. Like the electronic color separation plate making in the s and the computer desktop publishing system in the 1980s, it is another major breakthrough in the traditional printing process

in 1999, Quanzhou Evening News began to pay attention to the development of CTP at home and abroad. After a comprehensive and serious investigation, investigation and demonstration, in December 2000, the newspaper decided to introduce the diamond brand 610sp computer direct edition system produced by the American Western plate making company, which is represented by Hong Kong Weichang foreign firm

the CTP system adopts a mature platform design, combined with the advanced magnetic levitation linear motor servo system, which can provide fast, stable and high-precision printing plate output. The equipment uses a fd-yag green laser light source with a wavelength of 532nm, which can work under the red safety light. The applicable printing plates are split and four open, and can achieve a variety of precision output between 1000dpi and 2540dpi. At 1270dpi resolution, 78 folio plates or 125 quarto plates can be output per hour. The repetition accuracy can reach ± 25 μ m。 The equipment uses environmentally friendly and pollution-free ly-8 photosensitive polymer plates. 610sp has an independent automatic plate loading device, which can accommodate up to 400 folio or quarto plates, and can realize efficient, continuous and fast plate production

after adopting CTP, the process of intermediate film transfer and manual composition is omitted, and the printing plate is exposed directly without too many human factors interference. The repeated positioning accuracy is high, the output printing plate is neat, the point restoration is good, the color newspaper pictures printed are clear and rich in layers, and the production efficiency and printing quality are greatly improved compared with the past

to adopt CTP system, we must first make several preparations for the front end:

first, the CTP system adopts a pure digital workflow, which requires the front end system to provide pure digital layout files. Therefore, before introducing CTP, we should establish a complete full digital prepress workflow suitable for ourselves. Quanzhou Evening News has been using electronic publishing system and electronic editing system since 1990. The production process from manuscript collection, layout to laser Phototypesetting has long been fully digitalized. With many years of experience in electronic editing and publishing, the staff of the newspaper have been well trained in this regard and have rich practical experience, which has helped the CTP system to be successfully put into use, It has laid a good foundation for giving full play to its efficiency in the shortest time

second, because CTP system itself can only scan the printing plate once, any layout information (including advertisements) must generate a complete layout digital file at one time during typesetting. Therefore, for the advertising film sent by customers, there must be a practical film digitization scheme. At present, the common solution is to use the scanner with point copy function to convert the film manuscript into electronic documents. Quanzhou Evening News introduced ts5000 point film scanner produced by tesca company in the UK, which can realize high-precision and high fidelity digital restoration of advertising film. From the actual use, ts5000 scanner has fast scanning speed, accurate chromaticity, and can form a high-quality digital layout with typesetting software. Moreover, because the digitization of advertising film can be carried out in advance, it completely saves the time of manual typesetting before, and saves valuable time for the publication of newspapers. From the printing effect, it can also fully meet the requirements of customers

third, we should solve the interface problem between CTP system and rip of relevant typesetting system. Traditional hair typesetting software is developed for laser typesetting system to drive the laser typesetter to output film. After the introduction of CTP, it is necessary to select the appropriate new release software or modify the existing release software according to the used release system, so that the release system can output the CTP system, which can recognize other emerging digital layout documents in China's biofuel granulator industry, or as a construction engineering quality inspection center, select a good concrete pressure testing machine product to directly drive the CTP output printing plate

fourth, in order to meet the requirements of the market for the continuous improvement of printing quality, newspapers now use more and more high-definition pictures, and the resolution of layout output is getting higher and higher, which makes many large volumes of documents will be produced in the workflow of digitizing the layout. Usually, a folio layout adopts a resolution of 1270dpi, and the digital file generated after rip processing will be more than 100MB, which puts forward high requirements for the storage, exchange and transmission speed of data. The completed Quanzhou Evening News intelligent building and printing distribution center building are equipped with various application servers with high performance and large storage space, and use high-performance Gigabit to build networks with large switching institutions, providing strong data processing capacity and data exchange capacity, which greatly improves work efficiency

fifth, computer direct plate making equipment is a high-tech product involving multiple disciplines and fields, which not only brings many conveniences, but also puts forward newer and higher requirements for practitioners. The use of CTP system can save a lot of labor. However, the reduction of operators is based on the premise of greatly improving the technical quality of operators. At the same time of introducing equipment, we should pay attention to the training of CTP operators and maintenance personnel. Only comprehensive and high-quality talents can control the new technology and equipment, so that the new technology and equipment can produce the maximum benefits

CTP introduced by Quanzhou Evening News arrived in early June 2001. Western plate making company of the United States and Weichang foreign company of Hong Kong sent several batches of equipment engineers and process engineers to strictly and scientifically install, debug and test the whole process from plate making to printing. It was officially put into use on July 1, truly realizing the digital operation and management of the whole process from information collection, processing, marshalling, revision to computer direct plate making, The publication time of Quanzhou Evening News and its various media was advanced by more than one hour, which enhanced the competitiveness of the newspaper industry in the market economy environment. Since the project was put into operation, the equipment has operated reliably and the quality is stable, filling the blank of plate making industry in Fujian Province

ctp brings many benefits, which are mainly reflected in the following points:

1. The direct plate making technology eliminates the film imaging of Laser Phototypesetting, manual plate making, plate printing in the 3-point zigzag experiment and PS plate development and fixing processing, and replaces the traditional analog technology with digital technology. In this process, the layout information is directly imaged on the printing plate without using film, It reduces the number of image transfer and the link of artificial influence on the layout. The points on the printing plate are direct primary imaging points, and the image is accurate and clear. There will be no loss of information at high-profile points, and there will be no paste at dark tone points. The quality of printing plates has been greatly improved, and the printing effect is much better than before

2. The more direct effect of process reduction is to save a lot of time and reduce the staff required. Quanzhou Evening News originally required 3-4 people to complete the plate making work in about 4 hours. After adopting the CTP system, it can be easily completed by only one person in more than 1 hour. It saves a lot of labor, reduces the labor intensity, and greatly shortens the preparation time before printing. Under the condition that the printing time of the printing machine remains unchanged, the deadline of the newspaper can be postponed for more than one hour, which increases the amount of newspapers in the next day and greatly enhances the readability of the newspaper

3. At present, CTP plates and computer direct plate making equipment are rarely available in China. In a relatively long period of time, direct plate making technology should be adopted in China. Not only the technology and equipment should be imported, but also the plate materials should be basically imported, which makes the initial investment and daily plate making costs relatively large. Take the plate as an example, it costs 50-60 yuan to import one piece, while the domestic ordinary PS version costs only about 20 yuan each. The introduction of CTP system is not a small investment, but in terms of the time gained by CTP, if we want to achieve the same effect, the investment in printing equipment will far exceed the investment in CTP. Moreover, for newspapers, the cost of plate making accounts for a small proportion of the total cost. Compared with the time and benefits, the cost of adopting CTP system is very worthwhile

we should fully understand the importance of technological progress politically, and we should not regard the technological progress of the newspaper industry as a purely technical problem, which is a political problem related to the guidance of public opinion and the publicity work of the party. Our newspapers, especially the party newspapers, are the propaganda front of the party and the mouthpiece and tool of the party and the people. Technological progress can enrich the content of newspapers, improve the timeliness of newspapers, enhance the influence of newspapers, and better play its social function of public opinion guidance

we should recognize the importance and urgency of technological progress from the situation we are facing. The newspaper industry is a knowledge intensive industry. Attaching importance to the application of high and new technology is related to the survival and development of newspapers. With the continuous progress of society, the skills that any industry depends on will change. Realizing the digital operation and management of the whole process of the newspaper industry is the most basic and necessary means for the newspaper and its staff to do a good job in the era of knowledge economy. Without the support of high and new technology, the newspaper industry is uncompetitive from editing to publishing, distribution and advertising, which is difficult to survive and even impossible to develop. The leadership and newspaper workers are not interested in new technology. In fact, they are far away from today's society and the trend of the times. This kind of newspaper is an outdated newspaper