Laser imaging systems are becoming a key factor in the efforts of newspapers to further automate their pre -press production processes.Already there exists electronic cameras, platemakers, news -photo facsimile, full page facsimile, color separators and typesetters that use lasers as the exposure source. In general the main driving force for the use of laser exposure systems is their easy compatibility with digital systems.
Over several hundred years of refinement, the graphic arts industry has become skilled in producing images, in the form of printed pages, that maximize both esthetics and information content. Skills of graphic arts practitioners include typeface design; selection of proper combinations of typefaces with proper character spacing for maximum readability; balancing of page components and layout for best economical information transfer; and optimizing picture reproduction techniques consistent with mechanical printing processes.These capabilities have grown out of centuries of trial and error, with theoretical foundations playing catch -up. The electronic -digital automation of these basic arts and crafts is the critical path for the printing industry. Today's forward thinking printer is quick to adopt new technology that offers improved cost -effectiveness, and a host of suppliers have emerged who are bringing modern technology to bear on historic graphic arts reproduction problems.Key among the new products are laser -based devices whose capabilities range from digitizing illustrations to exposing full page images on photosensitive materials.Lasers as Input /Output Devices At a recent major international conference (DRUPA), 19 companies exhibited 37 laser -based graphic arts products ( Figure I). Added to the exhibitors at the US newspaper industry conference (AN PA), a total of 23 companies showed 42 products, 20 of them new for 1982. Figure 2 lists DRUPA exhibitors who are
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