The Superia LH-S2 plate, which is additional to the company’s existing plate portfolio, is commercially available with immediate effect.

It uses the advanced multi-layer technologies also used in Fujifilm’s existing processless plates to develop a new plate that provides a step to processless.

Said to deliver “outstanding performance, less waste, and easier handling”, the plate is best suited to general commercial printing and can be imaged at 200lpi, making it suitable for 20μm FM screening for high-quality print applications. It can facilitate run lengths of up to 100,000.

Fujifilm Graphic Systems Europe offset product group manager Sean Lane said the new plate offers “significant environmental and cost savings” and is compatible with most platesetters.

“A lot of customers look at processless as where they want to go with their business but are perhaps nervous to go from what they see as a traditional process plate straight to on-press processing,” said Lane.

“They love the idea of processless but to start with they’d like to continue to process off-press.

“We saw this as a natural step to offer them that choice so that they can go one step closer to processless and then, when they’re ready, it’s a very easy transition to processless because the plate technology is almost exactly the same.”

Fujifilm said the plate is robust and built to withstand pressroom handling, with resistance to fingerprint marks. It can be used at higher drum speeds to improve productivity and enable faster plate remakes.

It is also said to offer enhanced ablation performance, meaning less debris accumulates in the platesetter.