A simple low cost laser platemaking system consisting of an internal drum scanner for use with thermal imaging materials has been developed. The system has been proven with operation at a major newspaper for more than a year. Halftone image quality is described in terms of a scanned area transfer function.

The paper traces the development of small format image recorders. It delves deeply into the structure and sub-systems of a typical small format laser recorder, the Muirhead M300. A brief description of suitable recording materials is also included.

The most widespread practice for including drawings, diagrams, and other artwork in technical documents and reports is to cut and paste. This involves reduction or magnification, cropping, and then affixing the artwork in a space left blank in the report for the picture. To save labor, minimize handling and, above all, to improve the management of the document production by keeping track of the artwork, it would be advantageous to digitize a piece of graphics, merge the graphics with the text electronically, and print out the combination as one integral product. Systems that can perform these functions are either expensive or slow, or both. The purpose of this work was to investigate ways in which art-work could be digitized, merged with text, and printed at modest cost, satisfactory speed and with a quality that is consistent with the requirements for technical publication.

The history of color scanners goes back further than many people realize. They were originally developed by companies such as RCA and Kodak in the 1930's and the first commercially acceptable separations were produced in the late 1950's by PDI.

The printing industry in the past fifteen years has seen immense developments in the use of photocomposition and computers in improving general productivity. The relative standardisation of it's production system and the size of it's production unit has meant that in many cases the newspaper has been in a position to take more advantage of the new techniques than commercial printers.

The utilization of electronic composition technology in the United Kingdom has been complicated by rapidity of change and constrained by the use of concepts and equipment unfamiliar to the traditional management and labour force employed in the printing industry. To help overcome these problems, Pira (The Research Association for the Paper and Board, Printing and Packaging Industries) set out to devise a basic electronic composition system that could be used to similate the production requirements of text composition for a range of different printed products, e.g. books, magazines, newspapers, etc. The paper will describe a Composition Centre that has been in operation since April 1978. It provides for investigating, developing, and evaluating the use of the latest electronic composition and related systems, together with staff and facilities for advising, demonstrating and providing 'hands-on' induction training mainly for the decision makers in industry. It uses a variety of equipment including the Monotype Lasercomp, Linotron 202, AM Compset 550, Xenotron Videocomposer, and the Ferranti CS 7 composition system. The paper will also include a description of some of the research projects recently comnieted_

In 1880, Stephen Horgan introduced a new dimension to the world of printing when under his direction the first published halftone, named "Shantytown", appeared on the front page of the New York Daily Graphic,.

The paper reviews the evolving relationship between lasers and imaging materials to be used as the digital output of the electronic publishing systems of the 1980's. There are several real constraints in practical lasers as well as cost effective imaging materials that will lead to the dominance of electrophoto-graphic and thermal imaging systems by 1986. Silver based imaging products (paper, film, and printing plates), due to their increasing costs, will be displaced by these relatively new applications of old techniques.

James River Graphics is a leader in the development of non-silver laser imaging technologies, i.e. , ablative, electrophotography, diazo and vesicular. Its involvement in these technologies will be reviewed by describing the construction, application and key properties of some of these non-silver consumables.

Before going into any explanation concerning pros and cons or rapid access tvne processing verses premium lith type material in conjunction with a laser scanner, I would like to no hack in history to the initial development of the scanners in general,

At present, high power argon lasers are used extensively in modern graphics installations. In particular, ultraviolet lasers are being widely employed in newspaper plate-making systems and yet these lasers place the most stringent demands on existing commercial laser technology. The advanced research, design and manufacturing considerations for ultraviolet ion lasers are the subject of this talk.

The technology of coatings is assessed in relation to the four main operating modes of lasers viz. u.v., high/medium power visible, near infra red and low power visible. It is assessed that though the majority of the systems in current commercial use are of the high power u.v. type because of the lack of availability of suitably sensitised coatings, great efforts are being made to provide coatings compatible with medium to low Dower lasers. A survey of the systems disclosed in the patent literature potentially able to achieve the objective is discussed.