Hi, we use processless plates since last year, we have tested some brands and some types.
Here is my personal opinion:
Kodak Sonora XP: the best of a plate, I see an increase of quality and visibility, we really like it (me in prepress room and the guys in pressroom).
Fuji Pro-T3: great plates but the visibility is decreasing; me and the pressmen are quite happy with them too, no problem.
Ipagsa Klasse NPN4: the first run was a nightmare, no visibility at all and very hard to develop…we spoke with Ipagsa and they supplied us a new improved pack and… surprise! A great piece of plate, visible like a Pro-T3, harder than a Sonora and easier to develop. We are very surprised, but we would dig a littler deeper testing them.
Agfa Azura TE: Personally I stay very very away from them, Visibility is perfect but after few plates I found the platesetter full of green dust from the plate. In press the development is a little longer and had some problems with ink and water pollution. Speaking with sales rep doesn't gave us any help so we left them (the green coat is very sticky, cleaning the platesetter was my hour of hell).
I would like to test also some chinese plates, some looks very interesting, but are so hard to find. Let's see what will happen!
(all test were performed on a PT-R8600 and a SM 102 4 colors)
Hope it would help you.
Bye!
G: