中文For decades, flexography has lived in gravure’s shadow when it comes to pure print quality. Great for speed and flexibility, sure — but if you wanted mirror-smooth solids and razor-sharp detail, gravure was the benchmark. Esko just took a swing at that hierarchy, and a panel of judges noticed.
The company’s CDI Quartz XPS ecosystem has won the Innovation Award in the supplier category at the FlexoTech Awards 2026. The recognition went to a system that bundles next-generation imaging, advanced screening, LED exposure and intelligent automation into one platemaking workflow — and the claim is bold: flexo quality that “rivals gravure” while keeping the productivity and flexibility that make flexo valuable in the first place.
So what’s actually new? At the centre is a redeveloped optical platform capable of imaging at 4,000 pixels per inch — nearly double the conventional industry standard. Pair that with Crystal XPS LED exposure and you get microscopic 2,000 lpi Q-Cell surface structures across solids and screening dots. The point of those tiny structures is to optimise ink transfer at a microscopic level, which translates into smoother solids, cleaner highlights, better tonal transitions and sharper fine detail. If you’ve ever fought with pinholes or dot bridging on a flexo plate, you’ll understand why that’s a big deal.
Esko’s director of marketing strategy, Jan De Roeck, was clear that Quartz is designed to optimise the whole plate process, not just one step. The CDI Quartz imager, Crystal XPS LED exposure unit, Quartz screening software and Flexo Front End work together to automatically tune imaging parameters based on plate type, substrate, anilox, press config and ink set. The promise is highly repeatable plate production and consistency from job to job — which means printers and tradeshops hit target quality faster and with less variability.
Two screening modes round it out. Variable Highlight Q-Cells (VQ) maximise solid ink density while smoothing vignettes and highlights; Stochastic Q-Cells (SQ) extend tonal range for demanding high-definition graphics. There are also hard production benefits: solid ink density improvements of up to 0.7, virtually eliminated pinholes and dot bridging, better barcode and reverse-text reproduction, and ink savings of up to 20% through lower-volume anilox rolls. In a margin-sensitive industry, a 20% ink saving is not a footnote — it’s money.
Crucially, Quartz supports water-based inks and premium quality on demanding substrates, including those with high post-consumer recycled content. That last point matters enormously as brands push sustainable packaging: you can chase recyclability without surrendering print quality.
Esko also protected existing investments. The new optics stay compatible with established CDI modes like Crystal Screening and HD Flexo, so customers can adopt Quartz without throwing away proven workflows. That’s how you actually get adoption — meet shops where they are.
For flexographic printers and tradeshops, the message is simple: the gap between flexo and gravure just got a lot narrower, and the business case — consistency, ink savings, sustainability, repeatability — is concrete. For the wider packaging world, it’s another sign that prepress innovation, not just press hardware, is where competitive edges are being forged. Thirty-plus years of CDI heritage didn’t stand still. Quartz is what happens when it decided to leap.
Source: Labels & Labeling
