Prepress wide format Film

Some prepress processes still require film...

MPH has promised its customers that they can still order film for print pre-press despite the current trend of retiring imagesetters. Costs are soaring and businesses are choosing computer to plate methods rather than the film process. The problem occurs when certain processes still rely on film but the demand for those niche methods becomes the issue. They don't stack up against the cost of keeping the image setter serviced and running.

Is your company facing a similar situation? You can order film negatives or positives for any prepress requirement. We can offer a very attractive price range for film up to 650 x 960 mm size.

Your projects will be imaged on the highest quality seven thou thick film, perfect for handling as this reduces the risk of creasing. The film uses high-density matt emulsion guaranteeing the best high contrast imaging. Our artwork imaging workflow uses 16bit rather than 8bit and this means crisp round dots for tone work plus no threat of losing tonal range with process work.

To discuss your requirements, please give us a call or email us and we will respond promptly.

Printing presses need flexo plate manufacturers

Sometimes I receive enquires regarding the supply of raw flexographic photopolymer plate. I can assure all customers that as one of the UK's leading repro houses & plate makers we receive very competitive prices on stock.

If you have any requirements on stock, please don't hesitate to contact me direct.

Latest newsletter for Packaging mockups

Looking for packaging mock-ups?
Look no further....

Mock-ups | Sales samples | Prototyping | Marketing | Promotional | Short run

Cartons

Labels

Shrink sleeves

Tubes

Cans

Flexible packaging

Experienced and helpful, serving all of the UK, we offer very competitive pricing and understand near impossible deadlines!

To discuss your requirements, please give us a call or email us and we will respond promptly.

Flexographic bureau, Asahi / Flint Solvent or FAST?

Our flexo plate bureau has been an enormous success in the last couple of years. Customers use it for cost effective plate making using up to date technology. We primarily run this service with our Dupont Cyrel Fast system whereby flexographic plates are imaged on an Esko Spark laser imager, exposed and then thermally developed. From start to finish this process takes about an hour and provides an incredibly versatile printing plate. We stock hard plates ideal for tone & dot work, soft plate for solids with superior ink transfer. The beauty of imaging on digital plate is the accuracy of the dot created, it also eliminates any potential error from using conventional film negatives and vacuums.

Some printers still prefer the old style solvent plate for various valid reasons. They do have a great ink transfer and some find them easier to mount onto cylinders. Our flexo plate making bureau service caters for these customers also. We stock digital conventional plate that covers the best of both worlds. Asahi & Flint ACE are both very popular amongst printers & our bureau images error free laser plates that are developed by traditional means. Contact us for details.

CMYK & RGB; The basics.

To put it at the most basic level, when we see a colour photo or picture on a piece of paper we generally see that it is made up from tints of 4 colours; cyan, magenta, yellow & black. When we see colour on a computer screen or any other digital display it is made up from red, green and blue.

Primary colours

Think back to junior school and mixing those poster paints, lots of different colours can be made by mixing basic colours together. Back then, generally we were taught that red, yellow & blue were primary colours. When two primary colours are mixed together we get secondary colours; orange, purple/violet and green. If you then mix a secondary colour with one of the primary colours that made it we get a tertiary colour. Often this is expressed as a colour wheel and within this wheel we gain a range of available colours, this is sometimes called a gamut. I know, for a lot of people this is a bit like being taught how to suck eggs but I want to go through the basics to better explain the more complex concepts.

So with this red, yellow, blue system (RYB) a gamut of other colours are available and this has been used in the art world for the longest period of time. The science of colour has come along a bit since RYB's inception and it was discovered that a far larger range of colours becomes available by using cyan (blue), magenta (red) and yellow (CMY). Then the printing press came along and printers decided to adopt this better system and to add an extra dimension of tone to their gamut; black was added (K for key).

Subtractive colour

I mention the science of colour because it became just that. The older RYB method was more of a discovery rather than a reasoned, understood system. The biggest breakthrough came with the advent of physics with its understanding of how we see colour, that being white light is actually made from all the spectrum of visible colour. Thank you Sir Isaac Newton and your prism.

In other words when we remove a colour from the white light, we end up with the other colours and their mix results in a shade of a colour. When white light reflects off a surface, whatever that surface absorbs or fails to reflect in the colour spectrum hitting it means it only reflects back the remaining colours. Hence why that surface looks the colour it is.

This diagram shows that if a surface appears cyan, it's because red elements of white light has been absorbed and the reflect light you see is made from the blue and green parts of the spectrum.

Additive colour

RGB works in a different way. Its colour gamut is made up by a process opposite to subtractive colour. When a diaode or pixel emits light, it is either red, green or blue and if it emits all three equally you get white light. By adding more light you get lighter shades until you reach pure white, in subtractive colour the more you add, the darker it gets until it comes close to black. This becomes important when considering a design for print, we'll get onto that later on. With RGB the gamut available is far bigger than in printed inks, subtle tones and certain bright colours simply aren't available in CMYK or RYB.

My next post for the tutorials will cover additive and subtractive colour in more detail from the viewpoint of the designer. I'll post a link here once I've written it!

MPH Flexo | Prepress & origination

MPH Flexo are UK leaders in origination and prepress services for flexo printers. 

Outsource your plate work and we will promise to deliver a set of HI-RES printing plates with a very late cut off for next day service. You can use our bureau service and this ensures that plate prices are very low, perfect for any printer who can repro/step & repeat their own jobs. If you do require our repro skills, be rest assured that we have 30 years of prepress experience to call on.

Your company can benefit from;

*Artpro repro
*Hi-Res 4k digital flexo imaging
*Hybrid screening
*Fast thermal plate processing
*Solvent plate processing
*Conventional plates
*Letterpress plates
*Stork & Gallus rotary stencils

Mr Mo - Tash of power

Good news, Nick has allow us to post his mo.

MO stage 1

MO stage 2

MO stage 3

Its was obvious to all here that by stage 3 any thoughts of competing with this magnitude of mo would be pointless!

Please please donate as he might start threatening to remove it, that must really itch!

Movember

movember.com

Ok, a quick mention that a few people in MPH may or may not be attempting some deeply unfashionable facial hair in support of the charity movement known as 'movember'. I think it does depend chiefly on two things; will it look more substantial than a prepubescent spotty teenager's lack of grooming or the old classic 'will the other half kick up more stink than its worth'.

Myself will probably fall prey to the latter, Tim possibly the former and Nick will put us all to shame. Already (considering we're only up to day 7!) he's carved and sculpted his consummate mo into an impressive Hulk Hogan like 'tash of power'. Things can only get better. He has the support of his loving wife and family plus the admiration of his work colleagues. We shall see how much he wants to broadcast it to the world but hopefully this space will pay homage to the hulk very soon.

Ciao