Before CTS we were film. We had an Oyo thermal imaging system, but got tired of fighting all the issues at the time. We went to an Epson 7800 I think it was. I've said this often, but need to repeat it. We do a lot of short runs (48-288) and high screen count. Six to eight colors is common. Doing 15-30 jobs a day, you can imagine the film cost alone. We have used Tri-Loc since it became available, though not as it is designed. I modified its use to work better for us.
I think somewhere I stated that art issues can be more easily recognized. How much film waste do you have? I'm embarrassed to say, but we didn't know how much until we really dug into it. This was a problem in itself. The artists fought almost to their death to avoid going CTS. How would they catch their mistakes. They wouldn't have film to look at and check for errors. They wouldn't admit it, but a lot of errors were caught, resulting in outputting the same files over again. CTS MADE THEM BECOME BETTER at their job. There is software for proofing. Yes, mistakes still happen, but very rarely. If you are lucky enough to catch it when you are imaging a screen, the wax (on my I-Jet) can be wiped off and the screen imaged again. The screen isn't toast.
And fixing that mistake? It's all digital. The artist corrects the file, sends it to the machine again, and you have a screen in 10 minutes. Do that with film and how long will it take. And will the new piece of film even register to the other pieces you've imaged, or do you now have to scrap the job and output the entire job again?
Hope this makes sense. I know I tend to wander, but I'm trying to help you understand the benefits.
