A substrate manager for a substrate exposure machine is used, in one example,
as
a platesetter. As such, it comprises a substrate storage system, containing one
or more stacks of substrates, such as plates in one implementation. A substrate
picker is provided for picking substrates from the stack of substrates. The substrates
are then handed to a transfer system that conveys the substrates to an imaging
engine. According to the invention, a substrate inverter system is also provided.
This system inverts the substrates from being imaging or emulsion side down to
emulsion side up in the present implementation. This allows plates, for example,
which are stored emulsion side down in cassettes to be flipped to an emulsion side
up orientation, and then transferred, using the substrate transfer system to the
imaging engine. This flipping process has two advantages. First, the plates can
be emulsion side up during the transfer. This prevents any damage to the sensitive
plate emulsions. Moreover, the plates, now in an emulsion side up configuration
are in the right orientation for being installed on the outside of a drum on an
external drum imaging system, as is common in many platesetters. Also, the plates
are picked from the non emulsion side. Thus the system is less sensitive to emulsion
formulation changes. A slip sheet capture mechanism is also provided to pass slip
sheets separating the plates to a storage location.