staromat
The staromat is a title setting device for photo typesetting . The manufacturer is H. Berthold AG . Title setting devices were used for the typesetting of large lines of text such as headings and large characters, for example for posters or commercial jobs . In 1964, Berthold AG bought the Film-Klischee company and took over the development of Starsettograph . This was built under the name staromat from 1966 and had to be operated in the darkroom because the photo material was open on the work surface.
functionality
The device consists of a support surface for the photo material and an optical head that can be moved vertically on a rod to adjust the font size. An elongated type plate with negative characters is used as a character carrier. A selection wheel is used to move the plate in front of the light source and the lens, thus setting the correct symbol. Pre-activated, wet photo paper is used as the recording material. The orthochromatic paper does not react to red light, so the sign can be made visible as a projection before exposure. After exposure, the character immediately appears in black. The iris and focus are controlled automatically. With the help of the projection, the letter spacing is set manually.
The device can be equipped with additional devices that, for. B. enable round sentence, distortion of the font or overlays with a grid. Font sizes from 7 to 140 mm can be exposed on a format of 148 × 420 mm. With the spread of desktop publishing , photo typesetting machines and thus also title setting devices have disappeared from prepress .
literature
- Hans Wenck: Photo typesetting techniques . Profession + Schule, Itzehoe 1983 ISBN 3-88013-204-6 .