METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR AUTOMATICALLY INSPECTING A LITHOGRAPHIC PLATE AND READING ITS FOLIO

Lithographic plates have an identifying folio and an image thereon. The image corresponds to a print image to be printed on sheet material such as newspaper stock. An image camera optically examines the identifying folios of each of the lithographic plates to ascertain folio information, and optically examines the images of each of the lithographic plates to ascertain image information including registration information and exposure information. A CPU records in an the electronic memory the ascertained folio information of the identifying folio of each lithographic plate and records in the electronic memory the corresponding ascertained image information of the image of each lithographic plate. An operator using a keyboard can access the image information of a particular plate recorded in the electronic memory by reference to the corresponding recorded folio information for the particular plate whereby the folio information and the image information are cross-referenced. The image information may also be compared to predefined information and the difference is stored and cross-referenced to the folio information.