User guide

PLATESCOPE

Substrate Type (Plate or Paper )

Used to select offset plate or printed paper substrate.

Illumination Option (Red, Green, Blue, White (RGB), UV, IR, and Auto)

The instrument has a multiple illumination (LED) system to ensure maximum contrast when

measurement varying substrates (foreground/background colors). Lighting can be set to auto

or one of the manual modes. In auto mode, the instrument automatically detects the best

contrast for the material. An Auto mode selection requires a tonal patch measurement. The

manual color selection modes are red, green, blue, white (RGB), UV, and IR.

Manual selection tips:

Use red mode when measurement black/blue/cyan dots on a white/gray background, or black

dots on a white background. Use blue mode when measuring yellow/orange dots on a

white/gray background. Use green mode when measuring red/magenta dots on a white/gray

background.

5. Press the Measure button. Sample results are displayed.

Dot Angle and Dot Pitch

Dot angle and dot pitch (lpi or lpc) are automatically calculated each time a dot measurement

is taken, in the range of approximately 17-44% and 76-96%. For stochastic dots (FM), the

range is 15-33%. These ranges are used as they generally represent dot structures where the

elements can be evaluated as non-touching, individual points.

Dot angle, dot size, and pitch (lpi) data may take some extra time to calculate (approx. 3-5

seconds). Values that are in the process of being calculated appear as “---” until the results

are available. If a value is not available for a particular attribute, the “---” will disappear.

If the screen is exited before the results are calculated, the calculation will stop.

NOTE: Dot size, Dot angle, and Dot pitch only appear if the instrument is configured to have

these calculations enabled. These calculations can only be configured utilizing the PlateQuality

and Capture Tool applications.

Measurement Range

The instrument will report 0% and 100% when it can clearly distinguish between dots and

plate noise. There are cases where the instrument will report <1% and >99% when dot size

approaches or is indistinguishable from plate grain noise.

NOTE: Dot percentage can be configured to either one (X.X%) or two (X.XX%) place

precision. The precision option can only be configured utilizing the PlateQuality and Capture

Tool applications.

Exit

Dot angle

Dot pitch

Dot percentage

Dot size (microns)

Visual representation

of the measured area

Current settings

Zoom mode