•No Screen angles •No Screen ruling
•No rosettes •No moirès

Traditional 133 lpi Screening

CristalRaster Screening

Agfa CristalRaster is the first PostScript-based stochastic screening technology for true photographic-quality color reproduction. It takes a radically different approach to traditional halftone reproduction methods.

With conventional screening, the halftone reproduction of a continuous tone image has an arrangement of equally spaced dots with sizes that change proportionally to the tone value of the original. With stochastic screening, all halftone dots have the same very small size, but their number per surface area, or "frequency", varies according to the tone value to be reproduced, and their spatial distribution is carefully randomized.

CristalRaster uses uniform microdots, randomly arranged for each separation. Because there are no line screens or screen angles, images are reproduced without moirés, rosettes, or other artifacts. Simply put, it's the first practical application of screenless printing.