"Thats where press vendors said we needed to be to compete with imagesetters running film for metal plate or polyester platesetters," said Clive Green, Global Graphics Hardware business manager for digital systems. "If we get the distribution right we should gain a big share of the market."

It is talking to a major UK consumables distributor about taking the manual Cirrus, which will also be sold by Apex, the current UK agent for the Cirrus semi-automatic.

It costs 35,000 for the platesetter and a Harlequin RIP. To keep the cost down the Cirrus has been stripped of the plate-loading tray, plate punching and bridge to the plate processor.

Pre-punched plates are manually loaded into the imaging drum and then removed after imaging by hand to transfer to an offline plate processor.

Global Graphics is offering the SDT 650 plate processor for the Cirrus at 13,500.

The machine is currently available with a green laser and is capable of producing 24 plates per hour at 2,540dpi. At Ipex it will show a violet diode version.

Green said metal CTP would help B3 printers compete with digital print for short-run four-colour work: "If you can produce 24 plates per hour with two presses youre competing with 1,000 runs cost-effectively with higher quality."

Story by Barney Cox