Printing relief plate producing apparatus, system, method, and recording medium

A printing relief plate producing apparatus for producing a printing relief plate having a plurality of halftone dot convexities disposed on a surface of a printing plate material, for printing halftone dots on a print medium by transferring ink to the print medium, comprising:

• an amount-of-exposure data generator for generating amount-of-exposure data associated with an amount of exposure to the printing plate material, based on binary image data representative of a printed image;
• a changing data generator for generating changing data for changing heights of the halftone dot convexities based on the binary image data;
• an amount-of-exposure data changer for changing the amount-of-exposure data based on the changing data generated by the changing data generator, in order to produce a printing relief plate in which the halftone dot convexities have heights at a plurality of height levels within a screen tint region, which is formed based on the amount-of-exposure data generated by the amount-of-exposure data generator;
• and
• an exposure unit for exposing the printing plate material to a light beam, based on the amount-of-exposure data changed by the amount-of-exposure data changer.

A printing relief plate producing system for producing a printing relief plate having a plurality of halftone dot convexities disposed on a surface of a printing plate material, for printing halftone dots on a print medium by transferring ink to the print medium, comprising:

• a RIP for generating binary image data based on multivalued image data representative of a printed image;
• and
• a printing relief plate producing apparatus for producing the printing relief plate by exposing the printing plate material to a light beam, based on the binary image data generated by the RIP;
• wherein the printing relief plate producing apparatus comprises:
• an amount-of-exposure data generator for generating amount-of-exposure data associated with an amount of exposure to the printing plate material based on the binary image data;
• a changing data generator for generating changing data for changing heights of the halftone dot convexities based on the binary image data;
• an amount-of-exposure data changer for changing the amount-of-exposure data based on the changing data generated by the changing data generator, in order to produce a printing relief plate in which the halftone dot convexities have heights at a plurality of height levels within a screen tint region, which is formed based on the amount-of-exposure data generated by the amount-of-exposure data generator;
• and
• an exposure unit for exposing the printing plate material to a light beam, based on the amount-of-exposure data changed by the amount-of-exposure data changer.

A method of producing a printing relief plate having a plurality of halftone dot convexities disposed on a surface of a printing plate material, for printing halftone dots on a print medium by transferring ink to the print medium, comprising the steps of:

• generating binary image data based on multivalued image data representative of a printed image;
• generating height data for determining heights of the halftone dot convexities based on the multivalued image data;
• generating amount-of-exposure data based on the generated height data and the binary image data, in order to produce a printing relief plate in which the halftone dot convexities have heights at a plurality of height levels within a screen tint region, which is formed based on the generated binary image data;
• and
• exposing the printing plate material to a light beam based on the generated amount-of-exposure data.

A method of producing a printing relief plate having a plurality of halftone dot convexities disposed on a surface of a printing plate material, for printing halftone dots on a print medium by transferring ink to the print medium, comprising the steps of:

• generating amount-of-exposure data associated with an amount of exposure to the printing plate material, based on binary image data representative of a printed image;
• generating changing data for changing heights of the halftone dot convexities based on the binary image data;
• changing the amount-of-exposure data based on the generated changing data, in order to produce a printing relief plate in which the halftone dot convexities have heights at a plurality of height levels within a screen tint region, which is formed based on the generated amount-of-exposure data;
• and
• exposing the printing plate material to a light beam based on the changed amount-of-exposure data.

A recording medium storing therein a program for enabling a computer to generate amount-of-exposure data associated with an amount of exposure to a printing plate material, in order to produce a printing relief plate having a plurality of halftone dot convexities disposed on a surface of a printing plate material, for printing halftone dots on a print medium by transferring ink to the print medium, wherein the program enables the computer to function as:

• a binary image data generator for generating binary image data based on multivalued image data representative of a printed image;
• a height data generator for generating height data for determining heights of the halftone dot convexities based on the multivalued image data;
• and
• an amount-of-exposure data generator for generating amount-of-exposure data associated with amounts of exposure to the printing plate material, based on the height data generated by the height data generator and the binary image data, in order to produce a printing relief plate in which the halftone dot convexities have heights at a plurality of height levels within a screen tint region, which is formed based on the binary image data generated by the binary image data generator.

A recording medium storing therein a program for enabling a computer to generate amount-of-exposure data associated with an amount of exposure to a printing plate material, in order to produce a printing relief plate having a plurality of halftone dot convexities disposed on a surface of a printing plate material, for printing halftone dots on a print medium by transferring ink to the print medium, wherein the program enables the computer to function as:

• an amount-of-exposure data generator for generating amount-of-exposure data associated with an amount of exposure to the printing plate material based on binary image data representative of a printed image;
• a changing data generator for generating changing data for changing heights of the halftone dot convexities based on the binary image data;
• and
• an amount-of-exposure data changer for changing the amount-of-exposure data based on the changing data generated by the changing data generator, in order to produce a printing relief plate in which the halftone dot convexities have heights at a plurality of height levels within a screen tint region, which is formed based on the amount-of-exposure data generated by the amount-of-exposure data generator.