Functioning of Offset Printing and its Advantages compared to Digital Printing

Functioning of Offset Printing and its Advantages compared to Digital Printing

Daily we come across a lot of newspapers, magazines, catalogues, posters, pamphlets, visiting cards, brochures and several other things but we never give it a thought as in how this thing is being done.

This article is about the mostly used printing process which is known as offset printing. Offset printing is the cheapest mode of printing. Development of the offset press came in two versions: in 1875 by Robert Barclay of England for printing on tin and in 1903 by Ira Washington Rubel of the United States for printing on paper. Offset printing is a technique in which where the inked image is transferred from a plate to a rubber blanket and then to the printing surface. Mainly it is used in combination to a lithography process which is based on the fact that water and ink does not mix.

Before any sort of printing the designing of the concerned stuff such as posters, brochures, visiting cards, pamphlets and document is done. Designing is a crucial part of the printing process as it requires skilled expertise in corel draw, adobe photoshop and other designing software. Also the designer should have creative ideas about the same.

Once the designing of the document is done. But before the job can be printed, the document must be converted to film and "plates." One of the method by which this is done is firstly we convert the digital files into negatives. After that the process of transferring the image from the negative to the printing plates starts. This is one of the very crucial parts which impact a lot the final quality of the printing. A particular amount of light is passed through the negatives to expose the printing plate. This results in a chemical reaction that leads to transfer of the image from negatives to the plate. In spite of plates one can use paper also but it will affect the quality of printing. The best plate is made of aluminum but it increases the cost drastically. There are various options for the plates to be used.

It is also known as four colour printing process because the basic colours which are used for printing any colour document are four in number. Primary 4 colours are black, magenta (red), cyan (blue) and yellow. Even though you see many colours in the final poster, brochure, pamphlet, visiting card and any other document but it requires only these four colours to bring all of them. We need to have separate plates for these four colours.

Offset photography works on a very simple phenomenon that water and ink does not mix. The ink is distributed to the plate through a series of rollers. There are rollers for distributing ink and water on the plate. Firstly the plate is dampened using the water which is distributed through rollers. The image area of the plate picks up the ink while the non image area picks up the water. After that the plate transfers the image to the rubber blanket which in turn finally transfers the image to paper.

Offset printing is not done for lower printing volumes as it takes time and cost to set up the entire process. For small volumes digital printing is preferred compare to offset printing. But in large volumes the cost of offset printing is very low as compared to digital printing. Moreover the quality of printing offset is very good if things are done properly. It also offers you wide range of printing surfaces such as wood, paper, cloth, metal, leather etc.

But there are few disadvantages of offset printing also such as you require expertise to set everything with precision. Also you cannot see the final poster, brochure, pamphlet or any other document unless it is completely done. So, better chances of proof reading in case of digital print. Moreover if you want it urgently then also you need to go for digital printing.

There are various points to decide whether you should go or digital or offset printing such as volume of printing, time constraint, quality you need, cost restriction. So you can decide by properly doing trade off between these parameters.

We specialize in offset printing of brochures, posters, visiting cards and any other documents which in turn help us to reduce the costs many folds as we need less time and effort to set up the process. Moreover the quality of the product is unmatchable.

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