Effect of Plate Build-up on Flexographic Tone Reproduction

Flexographic printing many times has problems with tone reproduction especially in the shadow areas. Many times detail is lost in this area due to higher dot gain and poor ink lay down. Building up the back of plates could improve this area as it does improve solids. This experiment does show that building up the back of flexographic plate material can improve tone reproduction in certain cases. This papers discusses the results of an experiment where metal tape was placed on the back of plates and a tone scale was printed with the tape present. A comparison with untaped areas showed a better dot-gain curve using the tape.