Several hot technologies currently affecting the printing industry in China

First, GTP technology will be widely used

CTP technology has been widely noticed since its birth since it has the advantages of greatly improving production efficiency, shortening production process, and improving printing quality. With the maturation and improvement of supporting technologies and the environment, it can be predicted that in the next few years, the application of CTP technology at home and abroad will be greatly accelerated.

According to statistics, as of September 2003, the installed capacity of CTP equipment in mainland China has reached 226 sets, distributed in 19 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions, and has been applied in the fields of commercial printing, newspaper printing and packaging in China.

Judging from the type of CTP installed in China, thermal CTP dominates the domestic market, with 146 installed capacity; silver salt CTP (36 sets) and violet laser CTP (35 sets) have comparable installed capacity; photopolymerized version of CTP The installed capacity is 5 sets. Another CTP technology, CTeP, also entered the sight of people in 2003.

With the gradual domestic production of CTP plates at home and abroad and the continuous improvement of the corresponding hardware and software environment, it is believed that the application of domestic CTP will continue to show momentum.

Second, digital proofing technology will become increasingly popular

Digital proofing is a proofing technology that converts digital pages directly into color proofs. It does not require any intermediary media, such as films and plates, and is an indispensable supporting technology for direct platemaking. The traditional proofer proofing method can not meet the requirements of direct plate making, especially on the speed of direct plate making in terms of speed and efficiency. There are two main areas of application for digital proofing: one is a proofreading proof for the typesetting/internal correction (1mpositionProof), and the other is a contract proof for the customer's signature printing. The former does not have strict requirements for color reproduction, but the latter has strict requirements for color reproduction and requires proofs to faithfully reproduce the effects of actual printing.

With the progress of color management software and color proofing equipment, digital proofing has been accepted by more and more customers. Compared with traditional proofing, the digital proofing system requires less investment, has a small footprint, can reduce costs, and is less dependent on the operator's experience. At the same time, the digital proofing speed is fast, the quality is stable, the repeatability is strong, and the adaptability is wide. Therefore, in the future, the digital proofing technology and application scope will be rapidly developed, especially in areas such as remote proofing and high-fidelity six-color digital proofing.

Third, digital printing technology will develop rapidly

Digital printing features from computer to paper/printing crystals (so-called “Computer-to-Paper/Print”), which directly converts digital pages into printing crystals, and no longer passes through any intermediate media, including printing plates. . This is not only the most representative feature of digital printing, but also the key to digital printing for variable information printing (On-demand Printing) and on-demand printing. When this feature of digital printing is combined with digital networking, a global print service system can be constructed to provide on-demand/personalized print information/product services, opening up a brand new market. This is the main reason and driving force for digital printing to receive universal attention and achieve great development.

The features and advantages of digital printing itself are not the entire content of this technology. If you combine a digital printing system with a digital network, the situation is very different. Once the digital printing system is integrated with the global digital network, it can build a global on-demand production and service system that is not constrained by time and distance, and can realize on-demand services in a full sense. That is, to produce and provide products such as printing crystals, publications, packaging, cards, trademarks, etc., which are needed by customers in the places and times required by customers. This is a global production service system. Provided it is covered by the network, it can provide on-demand services. In addition to providing on-demand services, this printing production system also has many unique advantages that cannot be achieved with traditional printing production systems, and is mainly embodied in the following aspects.

1) Before meeting with customers (that is, before sales), all products are in the form of numbers and do not require any intermediaries to mediate physical media;

2) This is a method of selling first and then producing, and production is entirely in accordance with the needs of the customers. Therefore, there will be no product backlog or out-of-stock due to the inaccurate estimation of market demand in the traditional printing production methods.

3) Customers can designate and request products of any form and material, without resulting in additional costs (except for copyright-related expenses) in addition to materials and printed output;

4) The market position of digital printing is in the area of ​​personalized/on-demand, rather than in the popular traditional market where the quantity wins.

In summary, the emergence and development of digital printing will open up new market opportunities and provide personalized/on-demand services that cannot be covered by traditional printing. It is not as simple as people think: it will eat up the market share of traditional printing. Become a competitor in traditional printing.

Fourth, digital workflow technology will develop rapidly

If we agree that CTP, digital printing, etc. will become the mainstream of printing technology development in the future, then we will not doubt the fact that digital workflow technology and products will also develop rapidly. Digital workflow is an indispensable part of the networked printing environment. Without digital workflow, CTP, digital proofing, and networked printing have no basis for implementation. The combination of perfect digital workflow and advanced equipment and management can enable the company to enhance its core competitiveness and improve its product quality and efficiency.

Today, the digital workflow has evolved from the original ROOM process to the NORM process to the JDF process. JDF can describe a complete print job, is defined by the most popular XML language today, can be exchanged between different platforms and different operating systems, solves the problem of separation of production system and MIS system and integration of products between different plants. The problem can be adapted to the user's existing use environment to the greatest degree, and the user can build his own process according to his own needs. The emergence of JDF laid the Foundation for the development of the printing industry and will certainly bring a new revolution to the printing industry.

The digital work flow in the print production system does not stop at the print production system itself. It has already begun to extend to both ends of the print production system. The business population represented by ordering, planning, design, etc., and product storage, circulation, and sales are The representatives of the sales and exporter were satisfied with the system's management, and gradually formed a digital network and digital media as a link, including the business planning of the company or even the group as a whole, production organization, scheduling, coordination, monitoring, management and marketing management data. Huge information system. From a technical point of view, the components of this huge network system may be different brands of equipment, equipment, and systems from different manufacturers. Therefore, standardization (standardization of data formats, standardization of communication interfaces, etc.) becomes a smooth operation of the system. The key to trouble-free data circulation, exchange, and sharing.

The digital production process has led to a comprehensive integration of network transmission in the production process and digital media to replace the traditional visual physical media and storage and transportation methods. This will not only change the production and management methods of the printing/publishing industry, but also may lead to changes in the entire industry's business and operating models, opening up a new era. In this huge information system, each link will generate and receive a large amount of information and data. Between each link, the system and the system must exchange huge amounts of information and data at any time. Therefore, the management and effective use of information/data in the production process and system as a whole, as well as quality inspection and monitoring, face new challenges and problems.

Fifth, digital asset management technology will gradually be valued and applied

Digital printing era is mainly dealing with digital content. These digital contents form a valuable digital asset for the printing industry. How to effectively manage these digital assets so that they can be easily reprocessed and used, this is a must in the digital era. Face and consider issues.

The core of digital asset management (DAM) is content management. After digital content is processed by the input module, it is incorporated into the content management category and stored in the storage body controlled by the content management module. When there is a demand for use, the content management module removes the content from the storage. Extracted, processed or synthesized via content publishing module for multi-position publishing.

Printing companies using digital asset management systems can help solve the following issues:

1. Solve the management problems caused by the ever-increasing scale of production data.

2. Integrate asset management systems to solve distributed asset management issues.

3. Reserve "digital negatives" for customers and provide additional digital content services.

4. Reserve past production data for reuse and customer inquiries.

In order to achieve the above objectives, the DAM system in the printing industry mainly needs to solve the following technical problems:

1. Separate the logical structure management of data from physical storage management.

2. To achieve the management of unstructured data, Make Up for the lack of the database.

3. Use technology to increase the reusability of digital content and reduce management costs.

4. Use technology to achieve pre-publication storage, ready for on-demand printing and publishing.

In the era of digital publishing and printing, the DAM system will serve as a foundation support system and will be closely integrated with digital workflows, cross-media publishing, digital printing, and other systems to become an important link in the digital support environment for the printing industry.

Six, cross-media publishing will be the trend

In the digital printing production process, the same set of data may be called on different links, or may be output in different forms, requiring different adjustments. Even if it is called or output in the same way, due to the different equipment (such as different brands or the same brand, but different time of use equipment), you also need to make the necessary adjustments to the data. For example, a set of exquisite album data (images, texts, patterns, and layout data) will be processed and displayed at the image processing terminal after entering the system. At the same time, the imposition terminal will also make imposition and display, and may eventually be output as Color proofs may also be exported into film, plates, or even prints. They may also be used to make electronic publications (eg, CD-ROMs). They may also be used for other video displays or may be encoded for compressed transmission. Off-site, it may also be used to set up and control the follow-up process and so on. This is the basic concept of One Surce Muhiuse, which is often referred to as "single data source, multi-channel use".

If the concept of "single data source, multi-purpose use" is generalized, the basic connotation of cross media technology (Crossmedia Technology) that is gradually being formed today is derived. Crossmedia has become a fashionable term at present, usually in the form of crossmedia publishing Crossmedia Publishing and Media Database Media Database. The basic concept of cross-media technology is to convert all digital visual information resources (such as images, text, graphics, and other video information, even to audio information) into a