Evolving Impressions
Printing Methodologies and New Technologies
 When
considering specific options for your next printing project it helps to have a
good understanding of the different types of printing available and how new
technology is helping to make printing and marketing communications more
effective and more cost-efficient. There are five printing methods that use
plates or some other form of image carrier— lithography, flexography, gravure,
screen printing, and letterpress. The three most commonly used commercial
printing processes are sheet-fed offset, web offset and digital. Each of these
has an important niche, with inherent advantages and disadvantages.
Sheet-fed offset printing is a widely used printing
technique where the inked image is transferred (or "offset") from a
plate to a rubber blanket, then to the printing surface in one to six colors.
Offset printing is the most common form of high volume commercial printing such
as brochures, direct mailers and product sheets due to advantages in quality
and efficiency in high volume jobs. While modern digital presses are getting
closer to the cost/benefit of offset for high-quality work, they have not yet
been able to compete with the sheer efficiency nor final quality that an offset
press can produce. Furthermore, most modern offset presses are using computer
to plate systems (Direct-to-Plate or DTP) as opposed to the older computer to
film workflows, which further increases their quality.
[FULL STORY]
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