Agfa Adds, Sells Violet Platesetters

By: E&P Staff Agfa said it sold three Advantage DL platesetters and is adding two models to its line of high-speed Polaris platesetters.

Capable of producing 260 plates per hour (more at 1016 dpi), the enhanced Polaris versions, the XTV-S and XCV-S, are more than 25% faster than the XTV and XCV. Both use the same single, long-life violet laser now used in current versions of the Polaris XTV and XCV. The trolley-equipped XTV-S, a singlewide flatbed imager, keeps more than 1,000 single or 500 panorama plates on line, whereas the XCV-S features three online input cassettes that allow for easy switching between panorama and single plates.

The Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat and Chronicle, Gannett's consistent color quality leader and test site for the Agfa Advantage DL plattesetter and N91v plates, chose to buy three of the violet-laser computer-to-press systems, along with Arkitex NewsDrive software.

Launched almost a year ago, the platesetter features a minimum of moving parts, a small footprint and configuration for multiple plate sizes without customization. According to Production Vice President Bernie Szachara, testing sought reliability, print quality, and a viable violet technology. He cited the violet-laser system's low cost of ownership and the company's responsive service.

IntelliTune software used with the system automatically analyses tone, color and spatial characteristics in each image, then calculates and applies corrections needed to achieve the best reproduction. Szachara said that because IntelliTune makes short work of many images, it is used on real estate, automobile and other images that can be processed en masse, allowing operatorss to spend more time on individual images on the front page or elsewhere.