Enhanced relief printing plate
AssigneeEastman Kodak Company
InventorsPeter Stolt, Gregory L. Zwadlo, William A. Rozzi
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An improved relief printing plate and method for producing said plate is disclosed. Substantially all sizes of relief features resolve a fixed pattern which improves print quality. The pattern is applied to image areas in halftone data used to produce an image mask that is subsequently used to convert a plate precursor into a relief plate. The accuracy, ink density and tonal response of printed images corresponding to relief features that include the pattern are comparable or better than relief features produced without the pattern.
Claims17
A method for printing an image, the method comprising:
- preparing an image mask based on the image wherein preparing comprises:
- obtaining halftone image data of a first resolution corresponding to the image;
- increasing the resolution of the halftone image data in at least one dimension;
- applying a fixed pattern to substantially all image feature sizes of the halftone data;
- processing the image mask based on the processed halftone data;
- affixing the image mask to a relief medium precursor;
- exposing the relief medium precursor to radiation through the image mask;
- producing the relief medium from the relief medium precursor;
- and
- printing the image using relief features of the relief medium;
- wherein applying the pattern is designed to provide a constant reduction in transparency in corresponding image areas of the image mask;
- wherein producing the relief medium comprises producing a relief medium that resolves the pattern in corresponding relief features;
- and
- wherein printing the image comprises printing solid image features with an increased ink density when solid relief features resolve the pattern.
A relief medium representing a halftone image, the relief medium comprising:
- small relief features of a size less than a minimum size wherein the top surface of a small feature is approximately flat;
- larger relief features of a size at least as large as the minimum size wherein the top surface of each larger relief feature includes a fixed pattern of relief depressions;
- wherein one of the dimensions of each relief depression is significantly smaller than the dimensions of a nominal pixel of the halftone image;
- and
- wherein ink densities printed by solid relief features are greater when the top surface of the solid relief features includes the pattern of relief depressions.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.