Making CtP Work For You

Wheatley Printers of Stroud, Gloucestershire, has improved its operating efficiency and reduced the company’s carbon footprint by installing a HighWater Python CtP system working with Agfa Azura Vi low-chemistry plates.

Wheatley Printers has been a leading commercial printer in Gloucestershire. With four Heidelberg presses and a range of finishing equipment, they had been looking to update their conventional plate-making process for over a year. They required a small footprint machine that was easy to operate and that gave them the plate production speeds and quality required by this busy commercial printer. It also had to be an environmentally-friendly system to comply with Wheatley’s environmental policies.

Jamie Underwood, Sales Director at Wheatley’s, explains: “We thoroughly checked out the market and tested both Thermal and Violet CtP systems and came to the conclusion that the HighWater Python CtP system ticked every box in our evaluation criteria and was well within our capital equipment budget.

We are delighted with the performance and quality of the first generation image produced by the Python and we actually produced over 50 plates in the first day after installation. It’s difficult to see how we had managed for so long without CtP and we are now seeing the benefits, not only in plate-making times and quality but press make-readies.

It has allowed us to reorganise our pre-press area and released a large amount of workspace taken up by our old imagesetter and processor. The imagesetter was disconnected on the day the Python was installed and has not been required since”.

Jamie continues: “We chose Agfa Azura Vi low-chemistry photopolymer plates as we are very aware of our commitment to the environment. Our press minders find the plates easy to run up on press and have said that they produce a much finer, sharper dot with more detail than the old conventional plates”.

Peter Flynn, Sales Director at HighWater Products Ltd comments “The HighWater Python CtP system is an excellent product for imaging today’s range of environmentally-friendly, low-chemistry plates. We now have examples of machines out in the field that are imaging both Agfa Azura Vi and Fuji Pro-V plates, making it the perfect CtP system for commercial printers looking to make the move to CtP.