Patent ID: 6954291

Claim:
A method of reducing plate material in plate making, comprising the steps of: scanning one or more original images, each original image including one or more full-format screened images for making plates of distinct colors for printing the original image, the scanning being of at least one of the full format screened images of each original image for disjoint elements that contain image information, the scanning forming disjoint zones of the scanned full format screened images, and packing one or more zones to form a set of one or more packed images. each packed image including at least one zone and suitable to be sent to a film imagesetter or a computer-to-plate imagesetter such that the area of all the packed images cover less plate area than the scanned full-format screened images, such that when the packed images are made into plates, the zones on each plate are cut, and the cut zones of each original image of each color are accurately placed on a full size carrier, the screening properties of the cut and placed zones are substantially the same as those of the corresponding full-format screened images in the original image.