Abstract

Computer-to-Plate (CTP) technology has been used for newspaper and book production and been proved successful by several print houses. However these publications are mostly printed with less color and advertisments. Therefore, these fit into the niche market of CTP technolo gy. What about magazine production? Since magazine production normally requires more color, more advertisements, higher quality, can we still make profits from this new idea without a resulting loss of quality? State-of-the-art CTP technology is capable of producing high quality images, and large format. The time savings and labor savings are the biggest advantages. In addition to this, side profits like environmental improvement may bring the graphic arts industry a new face. However, instant change of workflow for magazine production is not possible. Meantime, advertising suppliers are still providing films for combining with editorial pages. The process of translating analog format to digital format is the biggest drawback. This translation step will be continued until the change over of production workflow, which will involve advertising suppliers providing digital file instead of films. For this purpose, lots of efforts have been made through the development of Digital Distribution of Advertising for Publications (DDAP), a graphic arts industry initiative whereby public domain accredited standards for the open process integration inherent to the structure of developing and delivering digital advertising material For example, the file standard for data compression and data transfer has been specified. This will help to promote the development of CTP technology. Many articles have discussed the advantages and disadvantages of CTP technology and promoted that CTP is definitely the future of graphic arts technology. Few of them really go into detail to provide the real figures of how much savings we can make from CTP compared to conventional methods, or how much capital investments are needed for this system. The objective of this paper is to find the cost differences of capital invest ment, material cost, labor savings and time savings. Data of material costs will mainly be collected from library research, or interviews with manufacturers. Data then will be organized and analyzed. The conclusion will provide a clear picture of economic realities of CTP through these calculations and comparisons.

Library of Congress Subject Headings

Electronic publishing--Costs; Periodicals--Publishing--Automation--Costs; Color printing--Data processing--Costs; Graphic arts--Data processing--Costs

Publication Date

5-16-1995

Document Type

Thesis

Department, Program, or Center

School of Print Media (CIAS)

Advisor

Cost, Frank

Comments

Note: imported from RIT’s Digital Media Library running on DSpace to RIT Scholar Works. Physical copy available through RIT's The Wallace Library at: Z286.E43C477 1995

Campus

RIT – Main Campus

Download

Share

COinS