steps for presses requiring punched holes in addition to the bend in the plate the required holes are also punched in the ctp machine application_number US 73013703 A description the availability of processless lithographic printing plates allows the incorporation of both a punching device and a bending device inside a ctp machine to automatically i e without operator intervention deliver printing plates ready for the press the prior art steps are shown in fig1 with u201c processing u201d shown by a dotted line as it can be eliminated by using processless plates in the prior art the step of bending the plates is manually done as the plates have to be carefully registered to the bender either by the punched holes or by the edges electronic edge detection devices built into modern benders facilitate this task all these steps are well known in the art and the equipment has been commercially available for many years for example from nela ternes usa one aspect of the invention is a method for imaging of processless plates in a ctp machine incorporating a bender a further aspect of the invention is the incorporation of the bender inside the ctp platesetter the steps according to the method of the present invention are shown in fig2 no manual step is required this allows large numbers of plates to be prepared unattended considering that a single color sheet requires between 4 and 8 different plates more if both sides are printed the importance of eliminating the manual bending steps is clear referring now to fig3 a ctp platesetter.