NPP has engineered a new printing plate technology called Cushion Core™ that will improve the print quality of direct-printed corrugated graphics regardless of the press you are using.

The revolutionary technology, called Cushion Core™, is a compressible photopolymer printing plate. It incorporates a specially designed compressible material within the plate. The difference is that it has no barrier between the photopolymer and compressible cushion components, allowing the cushion to easily compress to account for print impression loads without distorting the image area of the photopolymer or affecting any surrounding copy elements.

In short, Cushion Core™ was engineered to make you a better printer.

Without upgrading your equipment or incurring any additional costs, Cushion Core™ can help you and your printing team significantly improve overall print quality. Specifically, it improves print quality in three ways:

1. It will help you achieve higher printed ink densities in solid coverage graphic areas while simultaneously maintaining the clarity of fine details, small positive and reversed type, scannable bar codes, and halftones in the same plate.
2. It reduces halftone dot gains in highlight and mid-tone ranges.
3. It minimizes the appearance of printed flute lines in graphic images.

History teaches us that advances like this come with an associated cost increase that you need to pass on to your customer. But in spite of all its advantages, this new technology will actually help you reduce costs.

Cushion Core™ is priced competitively to conventional photopolymer printing plates and is typically less expensive when compared to thin polymer plates mounted on compressible carrier materials. It also helps your team increase productivity by improving production press speeds, reducing wash-up requirements and minimizing board crush during printing. And unlike other printing plates, Cushion Core™ does not require special storage, handling or cleaning.

Durability is enhanced due to significant recent advancements in laminating technology. It provides superior structure bonding between the plate component materials, extending the plate life of Cushion Core™ and improving long-term printing performance.

While Cushion Core™ is new to the market, it certainly is not an experiment. With years of research, development and testing behind this product, it is proven effective in real-world applications where quality was critical. It will deliver the same results for you and your clients when you use it in your production environment.

Cushion Core™ plates are also an ideal solution for magnetic cylinder applications.

• Accurate caliper and dimensionally stable
• 0.125" to 0.250" thickness range
• Maximum size: 52" x 80"

Based in Indianapolis, NPP Packaging Graphics Specialists has more than 45 years of experience in the flexographic reproduction industry, providing graphics, digital prepress solutions and printing plates for packaging.

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