Peter Roberts, managing director of the Gloucestershire-based printer, said he had been forced into the circa £40,000 investment following Agfa's decision to discontinue its Lithostar LAP-R plate range.

"It wasn't broke but I've been forced to replace it," he said. "We had three months warning to buy as many [LAP-R plates] as we could get and they've now run out."

According to Roberts there is no alternative to the red light LAP-R plate on the market and it was not possible to upgrade the company's Screen platesetter to image violet or thermal plates.

Clarendon Press was therefore faced with the choice of buying a new machine or outsourcing its platemaking, which would have cost five times as much as its existing inhouse CTP setup.

Roberts said: "Agfa allowed us to pre-order as many as we wanted at the end of last year, so we ordered a couple of thousand, which is quite an investment, in the full knowledge that we would run out of plates.

"Now that time has arrived and Ipex coincided with that so it seemed like a good time, but we could happily have run the Screen until my retirement. Nobody's going to spend that kind of money in this climate to replace something that isn't broken."

In addition to the cost of the new platesetter, Clarendon has had to foot the bill to send its now obsolete Screen PFR 1050 to landfill.

Roberts said that while it was "environmentally disastrous" to have to send a half tonne platesetter to landfill, the company would make environmental gains from its Alinte 4, because it uses much less chemistry.

"I'm pleased to have [the FFEI machine] but it's been a bitter pill," added Roberts.

The FFEI platesetter was the first to be sold by Marlowe Graphic Services since it announced its distribution deal with the Hemel Hempstead-based manufacturer in May.

The Alinte 4 SAL can image up to 34 four-page plates an hour at 1,200dpi, or 24 plates an hour at 2,400dpi. Its 120-plate capacity casette supports plate sizes up to 765x686mm and the CTP system can incorporate either industry-standard or custom plate punching.

Clarendon has now switched to Agfa's LAP-V violet plates for use with its new platesetter.

Commenting on Agfa's decision to discontinue the LAP-R plate range, Agfa UK managing director Laurence Roberts said: "Obviously technology moves on and we won't make products for ever.

"Once a product reaches the end of its useful life and the orders drop below a certain volume it becomes uneconomical to make."