Famous Printing Processes

There are many printing processes and methods to finish your printing project. Discover the range of printing methods and when to use which type of printing process that fit with your printing cost. Sometime you must choosing a way for your printing business works or for your own printing need.

Digital / Desktop Printing
Desktop printing is important to desktop publishing. It was primarily the introduction of both the Apple LaserWriter, a PostScript desktop printer, and PageMaker for the Mac that kicked off the desktop publishing revolution. Inkjet and laser printers are the most common type of desktop printers and are generally used for personal small volume printing and proofing.

Laser / Digital Printers
Speed and lower operation costs make laser printers attractive to many businesses. Color lasers can be found at service bureaus and printers and are often used to produce high-resolution color digital proofs. Adobe PostScript capabilities found in many laser printers make them popular with graphic designers and desktop publishers who often utilize EPS images and PostScript files.
For quality comparable to a high-end laser printer, the Xerox DocuTech printer offers toner-based digital printing for short runs and print-on-demand projects. There are both B&W and color DocuTech printers.

Digital Ink-based Printing
Some digital ink-based printing processes are used for desktop printers and others are normally used for higher volume business printing or by quick printers, inkjet being the most common. Currently, inkjet printing is the primary printer technology for home, home offices, and many small businesses.
Inkjet printers are inexpensive and produce good color output but can be slow. Best results are normally achieved when printing to specially coated inkjet or photo papers.

Dye-sublimation printers use high heat and solid dyes to produce photo lab-quality images and are favored by some graphic designers for high-end proofing and by some businesses who want to produce the best possible color materials in-house.

Solid ink printers are generally low-cost to operate, not requiring the more expensive inkjet papers to achieve good results. However, solid ink printing output is still not as high-quality as laser or inkjet printers.

Offset Lithography
Offset lithography is the most commonly used commercial printing process for the bulk of desktop publishing on paper. Offset lithography is used on both sheet-fed and web offset presses. The three primary differences in offset printing and desktop printing (such as inkjet and laser) are the colors of ink and the way the ink is placed on the paper as well as the type of printing machinery used to accomplish the task.

Flexography
Frequently used for printing on plastic, foil, acetate film, brown paper, and other materials used in packaging, flexography is also known as flexographic printing or flexo. Some typical applications for flexography are paper and plastic bags, milk cartons, disposable cups, and candy bar wrappers. Flexographic printing may also be used for envelopes, labels, and newspapers.

Gravure Printing
Gravure printing is commonly used for labels and packaging, competing against flexography. Photogravure is a process used mostly for fine art prints

Thermography is often used in place of the more expensive engraving process to produce wedding invitations, business cards, and letterhead with raised printing.

Letterpress printing is still used for some newspapers, books, and limited edition prints. Letterpress may also be used for printing business cards, letterhead, posters, and some forms but mostly replaced by offset printing and other processes.

Screen or silkscreen printing is popular for t-shirts but works for many other non-textile projects as well such as CDs, vehicle billboards, signs, and posters.

Stochastic printing may be used for some fine art prints.

Thermal autochrome printers are aimed primarily at digital photographers.

Thermal wax printers produce vibrant color but require very smooth or specially-coated paper or transparencies for best output. Thermal wax printing technology works well for businesses that need to produce large quantities of transparencies for colorful business presentations.

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Short Run Printing USEFUL TIPS

Quick short run printing is one of the most sought after online printing business services today. Short run printing will never replace offset printing. But, it is a valuable option that you can use, offset printing will always be the printing method of choice when it comes to bulk online printing jobs. However, it is the perfect compliment to offset printing since it covers all the printing options that are not available with printing offset.

Here are some of its unique characteristics and advantages:

• Save on printing cost
Since this kind of printing method is a direct printing method, you do not need to go through the tedious process of creating plates, color separation, film stripping, etc. Your files only need to pass through a computer which transfers your data straight to the printing machine. This allows you to print your materials with out paying for the materials mentioned above.

• Print only what you need
While offset printing allows you the advantage of paying less when ordering in bulk, short run printing allows you to place orders for small quantities of prints at an affordable price. Before the emergence of short run prints, you have no choice but to print in bulk because you would need to pay for your prints as well as the cost of producing plates and dies. Also, when printing short run, you can specify the number of prints you want. This means that you will never print anything excess again.

• Fast turnaround
Another advantage of not going through several printing processes is that you save time and allows your prints to be printed at a fast turnaround. Also, the way color is produced when printing short run is different from the way colors are produced in offset. When printing in short run, colors are sprayed directly on top of the paper and then coated with an aqueous finish. This makes the ink dry almost instantly without smudging. On the other hand, offset printing methods produces colors by running through 4 (sometimes even 5 or 6) rollers that contain different colors that when combined, produce the shade or hue that you want. This type of coloring process takes a longer time to dry. In short run printing way, you can pass printing process of creating printing plates, color separation, film stripping, etc. Never cost added in this way.

• It makes creating prints for your direct mail marketing campaigns easier
You can make your direct mail campaigns more efficiently since you can print different materials for different target audience. Short run prints allow you be more specific in the way you market to your target audience by letting you specify the number of prints you produce for a specific marketing are.

• It gives you options when publishing your books
Book publishers and authors are the ones who benefits most from having short run prints. Authors can now publish their books even with a limited budget since you can specify the number of prints that you want. Also publishers can now store large volumes of back copies of books and have them printed whenever an order comes. All they have to do is store a digital copy of that book in their database. It is a better option than printing bulk orders of these back copies and storing them in their inventories.

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Digital Printing Company - HOW CHOOSING

There are many advantages to choosing a digital printing company. You can fit your digital printing needs by reviewing their service. Not only are their services readily available online, but also they have the dynamism and speed most people relate to these days. They are faster, easily adaptable or adjustable and increase in their quality.

Offset printing may still offer the clearest prints available, but the digital printing machines on a digital printing company uses these days are quickly catching up to that level of quality. To fully realize the advantages of digital printing, read through the list below and see how you can benefit from this modern phenomenon.

Customizable sizes
Offset printers typically have set standard sizes. Be it for posters, brochures, booklets, catalogs and other print media, there is always a set dimension or size. This is because the whole printing machine has a set limitation on its dimensions at a given moment. It takes time to reset an offset printer for another task and size. Digital printers however do not have this limitation. You can print almost any size and shape using a digital printer and change its settings immediately. All the limitation a printer has is its actual physical size. With the increasing size of digital printers however, this is hardly a limitation anymore.

Faster production period
Digital printing offers incredibly fast production times for color printing. They can print anywhere from two or three days to a mere overnight rush printing. This faster production time is thanks to a more sped up process when compared to offset printing. Equipment can be adjusted quickly from one printing task to another within a few moments. In addition, the nature of quick drying inks today makes digital color printing immediately distributable.

Versatility
Next, digital printing is versatile. Besides printing the usual standard print mediums like flyers, posters, booklets, brochures, catalogs a digital printer can make anything you can imagine that has to be printed in paper. In addition, it can do this without have to adjust any particular major thing in the equipment. You just have to enter the right kind of dimensions and settings to your software and it can print it. You do not even need professional setters to move components in the printer. It is all done using software.

Relatively lower cost
Lastly, digital printing can be done at a relatively low cost. In some offset printers, the first sample output is usually the most expensive since it takes effort to set the printer for the first production. For digital color printing the first sample printing is printed as easily as the others that will follow it. Therefore, a printing company can easily drop the increased cost for a sample printing. Some online printing companies even offer samples free. Because of this, you can adjust your designs before mass production begins. This saves you money in the long run.

Those are the advantages of digital color printing. So if this matches what you want for a printing company, then find a digital printing company near you and start printing those prints for your project or business. Good Luck!

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Security Inks for Printing Business

The Security Inks used by printing business are many different types available that work as security features to help protect sensitive documents which are printed on security paper from being altered or duplicated. They all add unique features to your document. You will want to select the ones that best fit your needs.

Bleeding Ink
This security ink named Bleeding Ink prints in black but when exposed to any aqueous solution it will produce a red stain. Authenticity of a document can easily be tested without the use of any special agents. User can just wet a finger and run it across the ink to instantly see the affect of the bleeding ink. This ink is only available for use on dry offset printing.

Coin Reactive Inks
The image printed from this ink is white or transparent. The image is revealed when the edge of a coin is rubbed over the ink. This provides for immediate verification of document authenticity without the use of any special devices. Coin reactive ink cannot be scanned or copied. This ink is available for use with wet or dry offset printing and flexographic printing.

Erasable Ink
Erasable ink is used on the background of a document so that when an attempt is made to erase information, the ink rubs off in that area. The ink will also react in the same manner as solvent/chemical reactive inks do, giving you two security features in one. Erasable inks are used on scenic or pantograph backgrounds on checks and certificates. This security ink is not recommended when imprinting a document through a laser printer. The high temperatures associated with laser printers will cause problems within the printer when erasable ink is used. Erasable ink is available for wet or dry offset printing.

Pen Reactive Ink
A transparent ink that becomes visible with the use of a special felt tip pen. The use of the pen is necessary to verify authenticity but can also be used to void a document that is no longer in use. Pen reactive ink is available for dry offset printing.

Heat Reactive - Irreversible
Heat reactive-irreversible ink is colorless when printed. When it is exposed to heat between 185°F (85°C) and 212°F (100°C), sharp color appears and does not disappear once the temperature is lowered. This security inks feature helps protect documents or sealed envelopes from being tampered with by the use of steam or heat. Heat reactive-irreversible ink is only available for use on dry offset presses.

Visible Infrared Inks
Infrared visible inks are available in readable and disappearing ink. When printed they can look the same but when viewed under infrared light, one will be readable and one will disappear. One example of using these two inks as a security feature would be to print a bar code using both inks. Print the actual readable area of the bar code with the infrared readable ink and other areas of the bar code with the infrared disappearing ink but making it look like a regular bar code. When read by a bar code scanner, only the infrared readable is read by the scanner. If a forger tries to duplicate the bar code as it looks on the printed document, using regular inks, the bar code would be rejected when read by the scanner because the scanner would read the entire bar code. Visible infrared ink is available for wet or dry offset printing.

Optically Variable Inks
The color of optically variable ink changes when viewed from different angles. The special effect from this scurity inks type cannot be duplicated by a scanner or copier. A small area of a document could be printed in this ink to verify authenticity.

Penetrating Ink
Penetrating inks contain a penetrating red dye that goes into the fibers of the paper and will show through to the back of the document. Penetrating inks are commonly used on the arabic and MICR numbering of negotiable documents to deter forgers from trying to scrape the number off from the document. If the number is scraped off the red stain remains on the document. Also, if these documents are duplicated, the reproduction could be easily spotted by checking for the appearance of the red stain on the back of the document. Penetrating inks are available for letter press or wet offset printing.

Photochromic Ink
Photochromic ink can be colored or colorless. When it is exposed to UV light it instantly changes colors. Once the source of UV light is removed it will change back to its original color. The unique security inks of photochromic ink cannot be reproduced by a scanner or copier. The authenticity of a document with photochromic ink on it can easily be checked by exposure to sunlight, UV lights or other strong artificial lights. This ink is available in wet or dry offset and flexographic printing.

Chemical Reactive/Solvent Inks
This security inks type reacts to solvents or chemicals, such as bleach, alcohol or acetone. The solvents or chemicals are used by a forger to wash away or alter information on a document. When exposed to the solvents or chemicals, these inks will run, change color, or cause a stain to develop. Tampering is easily detected when chemicals or solvents are used on these inks. Solvent/chemical reactive inks are available for wet or dry offset printing.

Thermochromic Ink
Thermochromic ink changes color when exposed to heat and then changes back to its original color when cooled. When an area of a document is printed with thermochromic ink, it can easily be tested for authenticity by holding or rubbing the area between fingers to activate the color change. This security inks cannot be reproduced by a copier. Thermochromic ink is available for wet or dry offset printing and flexographic printing.

Water Fugitive Ink
When water fugitive ink comes in contact with water or any aqueous type of solution, it will run and stain the document. If a forger tries to wash away an image it would be very obvious. Water fugitive ink is available for dry offset printing.

UV Invisible Fluorescent Inks
UV invisible fluorescent ink is transparent white or colorless and can only be detected under ultraviolet light. If a portion of a secure document is printed with this ink, it can be quickly checked for authenticity by viewing under a UV light. This security inks cannot be reproduced on a scanner or copier. This ink is available for wet or dry offset, flexographic and gravure printing.

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Office Stationery Printing - How to choosing one

Choosing printing over your office stationery builds your image and make you a special one from your competitors. Digital printing, color copies, offset printing, large format printing, custom printing that provided by printing business companies are the many types of printing tips that one can choose from.

You need to have one good printing over the brochures, visiting cards or business cards, letter heads etc. to have a good reputation among your clients and customers:

Business card printing
Business cards are not only a way to exchange your contact details but they mean much more. They represent your business and play an important part in creating an impression over the consumer. It is really important that your business card is well designed as well as printed well. The printing in the business card should be such that the graphics as well as text come out clearly. The colors look beautiful and appealing.

The paper used for printing also matters a lot. It is always good to use a paper with a glossy finish for printing your business card. Although choice of paper is always a matter of personal liking but glossy paper gives the right look to your card. Always keep in mind that business cards are actually a bit of your business that customers can hold. A well designed business card that has poor printing can ruin the look and appearance of the card.

Brochure printing
Brochures are an easy way to promote your business. They characterize your company. When printing a brochure for your company, it is important to take care of certain things. The first thing to be kept in mind is that you need to look for a professional who can give your brochure the right look that goes well with your business. Only a professional will take care of the minute aspects of brochure printing like using the correct fonts, proper layout, suitable resolution, correct scale of the text and graphics, paper quality etc. Good and sophisticated brochure printing can bring a new zeal in your business.

Online Printing companies
Gone are the days when you need to put in lot of effort to get a printing company. All the more you had to visit the printing office again and again for proof reading and finalizing things. Today with the advent of Internet, you can get good professional online printing companies that get your business stuff printed as per your needs. You get your printed stuff delivered right at your door step.

You can see the final appearance of your printed brochures, visiting cards or other office stationery and finalize the deal. You can track your assignments right from your office via emails and online responses from the printing company. The most important aspect of these online printing companies is that you get their professional services at reasonable prices. But it is worth spending a few more bucks and getting a good and reputed printing company rather than going for cheap printing options that lower your status in the market.

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Printing Paper Finishing Types

The finishing of printing paper refers to the surface characteristics of the paper model such as how the paper feels: is it smooth such as glossy cover or rough with an antique finish? Does the medium (papers) you choose suitable for digital printing process, offset printing advantages, custom greeting card printing or just for labeling your CDs? Does the paper have a glossy appearance such as coated glossy papers or is it dull like bond paper. Does the paper enhance the look of the printed piece similar to watermarked paper or is it purely functional like newspaper print? Does the paper have a high ink absorption rate as does Vellum or poor absorption such as on coated paper?

Some common paper finishing are described below:

Linen
Linen finished paper resembles linen cloth and is usually produced after the papermaking process as an offline embossing process.

Gloss
A gloss finish produces a shiny and reflective surface on one or both sides of certain coated papers. A higher gloss is usually seen on higher quality coated papers. The gloss finish is produced from compounds added during the paper making process.

Matte
A finish on certain coated papers that is smooth but gives a dull appearance. A matte finish, as well as other types of coated paper, are good choices for print jobs in which high quality is required.

Felt
Felt is a soft texture on uncoated paper that is created during the papermaking process with a either felt covered roller or with a rubber roller with a felt pattern that creates the finish. It can also be accomplished as an offline process. The felt finish does not affect the strength of the paper.

Laid
A laid finish has the appearance of translucent lines running horizontally and vertically in the paper. It is produced during the papermaking process with a special roller that creates the pattern in the wet paper.

Parchment
A paper finish that has an old or antique appearance and is the result of washing sulfuric acid over the paper and then quickly neutralizing the acid wash. This process melts the outer paper fibers which fill the voids in the rest of the paper. Parchment is very durable and grease resistant.

Smooth
A smooth finish is the result of the paper passing through sets of rollers during the papermaking process. This process is known as calendering.

Vellum
A vellum finish has an eggshell appearance and is consistent and even but not as much as a smooth finish. Vellum is one of the most popular uncoated finishes and paper with this finish has a high ink absorbency rate.

Wove
An even finish in uncoated paper with a slight texture made by a felt roller covered in woven wire.

Cockle
A cockle finish simulates characteristics of hand made paper with a wavy, rippled, puckered finish. The effect is obtained by air drying the paper under minimum tension.

Finishes can be applied to paper during the manufacturing process (recycled paper) or produced offline. A paper finishing such as Laid can be created while it is being manufactured with the use of a marking roller that forms the pattern in the paper while it is still wet. Paper finishes provided offline are usually accomplished with steel rollers that press the pattern into the paper. The offline finishes are known as embossed finishes.

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