Jun. 15, 2023
Printing technology can be simply divided into traditional printing and digital printing. Traditional printing is usually divided according to the printing plate. The types of printing technology mainly include lithography, letterpress printing, gravure printing and screen printing, while digital printing is a product of the development of computer technology in the 20th century. It mainly refers to image reproduction technology, computer direct plate making. Digital inkjet printing and plateless direct printing, etc.
Offset printing
The printing plate of lithographic printing is flat, and the printing is realized by using the principle of water and oil immiscibility. The printing plate is divided into an oleophilic and hydrophobic graphic part and a hydrophilic and oleophobic blank part, so that the graphic part absorbs ink, and the blank part does not absorb ink. The copying and transfer of graphics and texts is completed by embossing machine. Lithographic printing belongs to indirect printing. The graphics and text on the printing plate are first transferred to a cylinder, and then the graphics and text are transferred to the printing material by the inked blanket cylinder. Roller has good hydrophobicity and lipophilicity, which can fully transfer ink and limit the transfer of water. In addition, the blanket cylinder is elastic and can withstand greater printing pressure to ensure the correct transmission and transfer of graphics and text. Lithographic printing can be multi-color overprinted and colorful. The printing format is large, the color of the finished product is saturated, there are few variegated colors and stains, and the picture is flat. From this aspect, it is superior to other printing methods. Offset printing occupies the largest market in various types of printing in my country. Offset printing, which designers often contact, belongs to Lithography, which dominates the printing industry.
Toppan Printing
When the printing part of letterpress printing is higher than the blank part, and all the printing parts are printed on the same plane, ink is applied to the printing part. Plate contact, and a certain pressure is applied to transfer the ink of the printing part on the printing plate to the paper to obtain a printed product. Since the blank part is concave, the blank part on the printed matter will protrude slightly when the pressure is applied to form a printed product. The surface has inconspicuous unevenness.
Gravure printing
In the gravure printing plate, the printed graphic part is lower than the blank part, and the degree of depression varies with the level of the graphic. The darker the graphic level, the deeper its depth, and the blank part is on the same plane. When printing, After coating the ink on the whole page, scrape off the ink on the plane (that is, the blank part) with a scraping machine to keep the ink only on the printing plate with a concave surface, and then place a substrate with strong ink absorption on the surface to apply a relatively strong ink absorption effect. When the pressure is high, the ink on the printed part of the layout is transferred to the substrate, so as to obtain a printed matter. Because the depth of the depression on the printed part on the layout is different, the amount of ink in the printed part is different, and the thickness of the ink layer on the printed product It is also inconsistent, the part with more ink appears thicker, and the part with less ink is lighter in color, so that the graphics and texts can appear to have different levels of shades.
Screen printing
Screen printing first originated in China. It has a history of more than two thousand years. Screen printing belongs to stencil printing. Simply put, the name of screen printing comes from the screen printing plate. The material of the screen printing plate is very simple. The printing principle is: the screen hole of the graphic part on the printing plate is The through holes, not the screen holes of the graphic part, are blocked, and the ink is transferred to the substrate through the mesh of the graphic part through the extrusion of the scraper during printing, forming the same graphic as the original.
Screen printing equipment is simple, easy to operate, easy to print and plate-making with low cost, and strong adaptability. The substrate can be hard or soft, it can be flat, it can also be curved spherical, concave-convex. It can be printed in one color, and can also widely use various inks and coatings for color registration and screen color printing. Because the screen material is simple, basically the printing area can be as large as the printing plate is made. This is something that other printing technologies cannot Than.
Digital printing
Digital printing is usually defined as: refers to the process of printing documents directly from a computer or output device with ink, toner or other dyes. Due to technological updates, a complete full digital printing system has replaced many traditional manual printing methods. Before starting to apply digital printing, we need to understand its main features:
1. Quality factor Digital printing uses toner, and the printed product has bright colors, but it is not suitable for long-term storage. Therefore, for printed products with high quality requirements, traditional printing such as offset printing is still our first choice.
2. Fast delivery Because there is no need for traditional printing drying or manual work, digital printing usually delivers quickly. Compared with offset printing, digital printing has obvious advantages for short-run or fast-delivery printed products.
3. Printing and proofing This is one of the most practical and popular jobs in digital printing. What needs to be reminded is that digital printing is brighter and more vivid in terms of color reproduction. However, large-area solid colors will not be uniform.
4. The cost increases. When the number of paper-based printed products reaches hundreds or even thousands, the cost of digital printing will be very high. Before whether to use digital printing to output printed products, a cost budget must be prepared. In fact, with the increase in the cost of offset printing In the printing market where the number is 300 pieces or more, digital printing has no obvious price advantage.
5. Printing size The digital printing size of paper-based prints is usually limited to A3 format. Of course, if the inkjet printing machine is used for indoor decoration or outdoor work, the size can be doubled or glued to meet the actual requirements.
6. Personalized work The personalized characteristics of digital printing allow the creative design to be extended infinitely. It is easy to change the design and produce different batches of printed products without causing an increase in printing costs.
