drupa Guides to Digital Production Technology

This section of the drupa website is intended to help visitors to learn more about digital production technologies used in prepress, whether they are printers, prepress and production professionals or print buyers.

Preproduction Data Management & Preflighting
If you’re in the media production business you’re part of an industry that is changing at a phenomenal speed. Digital technologies are integral to virtually every form of communications from the satellite navigation in your car to citizen journalism via mobile phones. The abundance of digital origination tools and options for information management gives the printing industry terrific opportunities to work with clients to create new print media products.

But managing the digital data into print can be overwhelming. It all depends on slick data management, workflow control and quality assurance. Technology plays a big role here, but it’s as much about process management and production awareness throughout the supply chain. This is what Preproduction Data Management & Preflighting are all about. Read on …

JDF
At drupa 2008 we are looking forward to seeing the fruits of JDF, the Job Definition Format. JDF adoption is spreading with many print halls and publishing houses the world making steady progress. Implementations in a range of print applications are improving cost management and helping print to maintain its competitive edge.

Digital integration of production and business management systems is vital for the future health of commercial printing businesses, and JDF has a key role to facilitate this. The Technology Guide to JDF explains what JDF is, what it is not and how it can provide process integration to the printing and publishing industries.

Digital Printing & Direct Imaging Presses
We all know that digital printing is important, and we’ve heard too often that it will replace conventional print. Eventually. One day. We keep hearing this yet the big money is still spent on mammoth beasts from the likes of Heidelberg and MAN Roland. The conventional press is supposedly soon extinct, even though it images tens of thousands of pages per hour, with dazzlingly efficient quality that’s constantly improving. Analogue printing does not stand still and in its ability to mass-produce gorgeous images of our world and our ideas, it continues to defy the laws of physics. But how long will conventional presses maintain their tremendous lead? How long will it take before digital printing really does take over?

You’ll have to work that one out for yourself! In the meantime the Technology Guide to Digital Printing & Direct Imaging Presses gives you the background you need to make that decision.

Computer to Plate
Although we hear a tremendous lot of noise about computer to plate (CTP) production, it is still by no means the predominant output choice throughout the worldwide printing industry. Many printers still hold back because they are reluctant to change their workflow, or because they fear they won’t be able to make the platesetter pay its way. But there is no longer any need for such caution: the technology is proven and cost effective.

Most printers in developed markets such as Western Europe and the US, have made the move to CTP, and are considering next generation investments. Digital production has spread throughout all sectors of the media industry, so transitioning the workflow is not the problem it once was. This is why the CTP market continues to grow, for both new users and companies purchasing replacement systems.

The Technology Guide to Computer to Plate outlines the basics of the technology and provides an overview of the imaging options, consumables and imaging engines. Use it to plan your investments, whether it’s for a first time purchase or for replacement engines.

Colour Management & Proofing
Despite its name, colour management is perhaps the most unmanageable of all digital production technologies. This is because colour is so very subjective and because its appearance is influenced by so many factors.

Understanding colour management starts with understanding colour and how it behaves in print. The Technology Guide to Colour Management & Proofing explains the basics of colour and looks at the technologies involved in its production. It also looks at procedures for managing colour production processes, which are getting more complex as more and more people are involved in developing content for print media workflows.