The Label Making Process – Platemaking

The next step in the label making process takes the office team’s hard work and transitions it into tooling for the press teams to use! Once at the platemaking stage, the label making process is essentially at the halfway point in it’s print journey.

Plates are an essential piece of the process because it determines how the label photos and design are built on press. Almost every Pantone color can be built from CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black) or our latest technology, Expanded Gamut Printing which includes CMYK plus Orange and Violet. Because these colors built the total look and graphic of the label, the press needs a plate for each color in the label build.

Once the LEN files are received from the color separation team, our platemaker places them onto a master sheet. The plate sheet then gets back exposed in the machine to the right, which sets how deep the plate design will be.

Next, a plate is put into our CDI Spark Processor, which engraves the designs from the master sheet onto the plate material.

After that, the plate is placed back into the exposure unit for face exposure. This burns the image onto the sheet through the other layers of materials via a UV light.

The plate is then put back into the processor and each layer that wasn’t exposed to the UV light is peeled away. Germicidal lights are then used, which takes the tackiness from the processed machine off the plate.

The plates are then cut and put into the envelopes that were prepared in the color separation process. They are then delivered to the production floor and are ready to use!

If you would like to learn more about the Platemaking process, or just have a question, leave a comment or reach out today!