View Full Term. By clicking sign up, you agree to receive emails from Techopedia and agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Offset printing is a printing technique that involves the transferring of an image from a metal plate to a rubber blanket or rollers before being printed on the receiving media, usually paper. In this method, the paper does not come in direct contact with the metal plates. Offset printing helps in producing high-quality output on surfaces like cloth or wood.
The rubber leaves a very fine print on rough surfaces, making the process effective. The process is equally efficient for small, medium and large-scale production of printing due to its high quality, inexpensiveness and consistent results. The publication industry uses two main kinds of printing techniques for bulk printing. One is the sheet-fed offset printing method, where each sheet is fed into the machine individually, and they are cut before the printing process.
Ever seen videos of newspapers running through big rolls? Typically, four colors are used cyan, magenta, yellow and black key , abbreviated CMYK , but offset printing also allows for custom ink colors most notably Pantone colors to be used instead. Next, the design is transferred from the plates onto rubber rolls.
The different colors of ink are spread onto the rubber and then the paper is run between them. The paper goes through all of the rolls, layering on the color, to get the final image. The inkjet or laserjet you hook up to your computer at home? Are you hoping for some unique business cards on metal or plastic? Or an unusual marketing handout on some other surface? Digital options are more flexible than ever before, but offset printing still has a leg up.
Does this job need color? If you need basic four-color printing, digital may be the best, most cost-effective solution. How unique are you getting here? If you need to see a printed sample before taking the plunge, digital holds the advantage.
The image to be printed gets ink from ink rollers, while the non printing area attracts a film of water, keeping the non printing areas ink-free. Digital printing eliminates many of the mechanical steps required for conventional printing, including making films and color proofs, manually stripping the pieces together and making plates.
Please leave this field empty. Offset Printing Today Offset lithography is one of the most common ways of creating printed matter. Advantages of offset printing compared to other printing methods include: Consistent high image quality. Offset printing produces sharp and clean images and type more easily than, for example, letterpress printing; this is because the rubber blanket conforms to the texture of the printing surface.
Quick and easy production of printing plates. Longer printing plate life than on direct litho presses because there is no direct contact between the plate and the printing surface.
Properly developed plates used with optimized inks and fountain solution may achieve run lengths of more than a million impressions. Offset printing is the cheapest method for producing high quality prints in commercial printing quantities. Time and cost associated with producing plates and printing press setup.
As a result, very small quantity printing jobs may now use digital offset machines. Digital vs. Offset Printing: Advantages of each and how to decide which is right for your project. Most Common Offset lithography is the most common high volume commercial printing technology. A full-size sheet measures around 1 metre by. Web-offset printing presses, on the other hand, are fed by a large roll of paper.
Sheet-fed presses are practical for printing marketing materials. Web presses are more cost-effective if you are printing catalogues, magazines, and newspaper inserts in quantities of over 50, Before starting a new print run, the printing plates must be replaced and a number of pages are printed to check if the quality is optimal.
If you are printing on a single-colour press, you must completely clean the ink system first before printing another colour.
While offset printing produces great-looking prints at minimal cost, some projects do not require volume runs in the thousands. If your project is less than pages, then the best solution is digital printing. In commercial offset printing, the more you print, the less you pay. After the initial cost during setup, you will only spend a few cents per sheet for the paper and ink.
If you need to print flyers, brochures, booklets, newsletters, and other materials in large volumes, the office printer or even a professional digital printer is not the way to go.
They are less efficient and more costly. If you need to print a large batch quick, then offset printing can make it happen.
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