Do you have time to go through the yellow pages to look for a printer? There are so many different types of printer out there that you could probably call every single one in your area and not necessarily get the right one for your print requirement.

I have worked for many years in various print companies and each is geared up to produce a limited range of products cost effectively.

There are many types of print processes with these being the most popular:

Digital

Similar to your office printer or photocopier. Is very cost effective and is usually used for quick turnaround or short run jobs because the process is very similar to sending a job from your PC to your printer. The quality of digital print has improved dramatically over the last few years and should soon be comparable to litho printing. They are limited to printing in four colour process (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black - CMYK) and therefore cannot use single Pantones or metallic inks.

Other uses are poster printing and large format vinyl printing.

Off-set Litho

Litho printing works on the principle that oil and water do not mix. A photographic image is transferred onto a thin metal plate which is treated so that the image area attracts oil based inks while the wet no-image areas resist them. This plate is then passed over rollers of a clean solution or water and then passed over inked rollers so the oil based inks “sticks” to the image area. The image is then transferred onto a rubber blanker which is then transferred onto the papers surface. Each plate prints a separate colour and dependant on the press size they can work in any combination of colours including pantone and metallic inks but mainly work in four colour process (CMYK).

Because of the upfront set up costs of the plates and the presses this makes Off-set Litho printing more beneficial to longer run print projects.

There are many types of Offset Litho printing presses available for example single colour, two colour, four, five, eight and ten colour with different presses being able to print on various sizes of paper from Oversized A3, A2, A1 and upwards.

Screen

Screen printing is a technique which used a porous silk screen on which a design is imposed where the blank areas are coated with an impermeable substance.

The ink is then forced through the silk using a roller or squeegee and the image is transferred onto the printing surface.

Used mainly in T-shirt printing.

Web Fed Litho

Uses rolls (or ‘Webs’) of paper.  Generally used for runs in excess of 10 or 20 thousand impressions and is mainly used for printing newspapers, magazines and books.

Web fed presses are divided into two classes Cold or Heatset. Cold web offset uses air to dry the image whilst heatset uses drying lamps or heaters to set the inks. Heatset can print on both coated and uncoated paper whilst cold is restricted to uncoated paper such as newsprint.

Gravure

Gravure printing is typically used for long run, high quality printing because it produces a sharp, fine image.

It uses a depressed or sunken surface for the image which consist of honey comb shaped cells that are etched or engraved into a copper cylinder; the unetched areas of the cylinder represent the non-image or unprinted areas. The cylinder is rotated through a bath of ink, the excess ink is then wiped off the cylinder and the remaining ink in the recessed cells transfer the image directly onto the printing surface.