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Jos Bolders

Bart Peter Verhoest

Jan Claes

Method and apparatus for DTR development of a lithographic printing plate of the type having a support possessing a natural deflection curvature under its ow weight and carrying an exposed silver halide emulsion layer in sandwiched relation an image receiving layer, wherein the plate is introduced into one end and removed from an opposite end of a DTR photographic developing bath for the emulsion layer. For such introduction, the plate is advanced through the nip of at least one pair of ingress feed rollers disposed one above the other above the bath surface along an ingress path that extends tangential to the nip at an angle of at least 5.degree. but less than 25.degree. to the horizontal and is unconstrained prior to its intersection with the bath surface. For its removal, the plate passes through a pair of egress feed rollers located above the bath surface along an egress path tangential to the egress roller nip at an angle of at least 5.degree. but not more than 25&gt;to the horizontal. While within the bath, the plate is guided, e. g. by elongated guiding bars, along a curved immersion path that has a positive curvature not substantially greater than the natural deflection curvature of the support and at its opposite ends is substantially continuous with the ingress and egress paths, The distance separating the nips of the ingress and egress roller pairs measured along the paths is less than the length of the plate. The guide bars can diverge laterally from one another.

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B 2640 Mortsel, Belgium

Jos Bolders