Patent ID: 8300275

Claim:
A method of producing printing plates with reduced area coverage, which comprises: prior to screening image data for a subsequent exposure of printing forms, providing one or more data files with data needed for the screening step and changing the data such that values of individual elements in two-dimensional data fields are changed, and thereby determining a number of elements whose values are changed by evaluating regions within the data fields; producing image datasets subdivided into micro-areas; determining an average tonal value within the micro-areas and determining from the average, in accordance with a relationship in the micro-area based on the desired tonal value reduction, a number of pixels to be subsequently erased and set to a value zero, corresponding to an uncovered area in the printed image; fixing the positions of pixels to be erased at fixedly predefined points within the micro-areas; and defining the positions of pixels to be erased as points at which, during a subsequent screening process, the pixels fall between centers of the screen dots.