Preparation of flexographic printing plates using ink jet recording

摘要

Upon a substrate subsequent layers of elastic ink are jetted using an ink jet printing system. Each layer is immobilised by a immobilisation step before jetting the following layer. A printing relief is gradually formed to obtain a flexographic printing plate allowing accurate control over the relief and slopes of the printing plates. Use can be made of different inks or immobilisation step to obtain different layer characteristics. Inks can be immobilised using UV curing. The recorded relief of the layers can be measured and corrections can be applied using a feed-back loop. A rejuvenation process for printing plates can be constructed using the described method. An elastic base layer can be provided on the substrate to provide better plate characteristics.