Consumables-General - Plates

Understanding digital workflow concepts, power and capabilities is essential for success for progressive package printers. By Marie Ranoia Alonso Digital prepress environments are fast moving into the realm of the package printer. This is not news. What is news is the robust capabilities of the growing field of digital workflow enablers, the emergence of PDF and PostScript 3 and their impact on the way digitally savvy package printers do business—not to mention the digital workflow power, now more than ever before, of packaging's front end. So much technology, in so little time. Or is it? For several years, packaging's graphically complex and deadline

Learning about prepress hardware and software with respect to your package printing operation is essential to a smooth workflow process down the road. By Molly Joss Properly designed and implemented, front-end prepress hardware and software form the backbone of the time and money savings inherent in digital workflows. It also allows package printers to gain better control over job preparation and scheduling. There are several approaches to creating a front-end system from scratch: do everything yourself; work with a value-added reseller or consulting company; or, work with a company that sells a complete line of solutions. No matter what route you take, it's essential

Functional specialties can help tailor prepress software to flexo, offset and other package printing processes. By Susan Friedman With commercial offset prepress needs nearly down pat, software suppliers' focus on package printing continues to intensify, with heavy emphasis on flexographic particularities. "Because flexography and offset represent the biggest installed base of printing presses, they are the biggest arenas for more specialized prepress software," comments Alex Hamilton of Computers & Communications Consulting. Ray Fennelly, applications manager at Contex, links flexo software growth to the process' steady transition from art to science. Package printers seeking process-specific software won't always find "Just For Flexo" stamped on the