Patent ID: 7224490

Claim:
A method of producing a printing plate on a cylindrical printing-plate carrier in a rotary printing press using a digital imagesetting unit and a raster image processor, comprising the steps of: (a) subdividing the printing-plate carrier by computation in terms of its width and axial length into at least two circumferential subareas; (b) determining an actual transfer characteristic curve for each subarea, (c) comparing each actual transfer characteristic curve by computation with a predetermined desired printing characteristic curve to find a deviation of the actual transfer characteristic curve from the desired characteristic curve of each subarea; (d) calculating a correction to compensate for each deviation; (e) receiving digital image data in a first data format using the raster image processor, the first data format independent of the printing press; (f) converting the digital image data into machine-specific image data using the raster image processor, the machine-specific image data including a position and a tonal value in the form of a bitmap; (g) applying the correction for a predetermined desired printing characteristic curve for an edition print to the machine-specific image data using the raster image processor; and (h) supplying the machine-specific image data using the raster image processor to the digital imagesetting unit.