What is Offset Printing? Why It is Most Preferred Choice?
Offset printing is a popular choice for printing in the publication and packaging industry. As much as it is used for large scale printing jobs, it is also a preferred choice for small printing jobs like printing letterhead, bill book, and wedding cards, to name a few. Good printing services Gold Coast will provide customised, high-quality printing solutions.
With 90 per cent of the printing jobs done in offset printing, it commands a dominant position in the printing industry. Technological innovations have made offset printing more efficient and less time-consuming. Digital printing is replacing offset printing, yet it takes just a tiny share of the entire printing business.
What is Offset Printing?
Offset printing is a traditional printing mode; it consists of ink and plates— the most common ones are aluminium plates 15 to 70 microns thick coated with a photo-sensitive layer. These are used to transfer images to a rubber sheet before it is transferred onto the paper. Offset printing is used for large-scale printing, mainly because it efficiently keeps running once set up.
What Makes Offset Printing A Preferred Choice for Printing?
Offset printing provides numerous advantages over other printing methods. Over time, offset printing has lost a small share of its business to digital printing, but it continues to occupy the lion’s share for its benefits. Some of the advantages are listed here:
- Offset printing is fast: initially, creating metal plates and setting the machine for printing requires time and effort, but once it is done, the printing happens amazingly fast. It is favourable for large scale printing jobs. Other methods may require frequent changing of inks, but offset printing ensures consistency throughout the process.
- Offset Printing is High-quality: Offset printing produces high-quality images every time it is printed. The operator controls the ink levels, reducing the number of wasted prints when the ink levels start to run out, unlike the other methods. Offset printing ensures clean and sharp images.
- Offset printing is versatile: Offset printing can be done effectively on different kinds of surfaces like— wood, plastic, metal, leather, vinyl, and various paper types. It gives the customer an option to choose from a wide variety of printing material for different purposes.
What is Four-Colour Printing and Its Advantages?
Cyan, magenta, yellow and black (CMYK) are the four primary colours used in commercial inkjet desktop printers and offset printers. Inkjet printers apply different inks together as it passes through the printer. In offset printing, applies each colour individually, a single colour for each plate. Tiny dots of coloured ink in specific patterns gives an illusion of a vast range of colours.
The process can use premixed inks in various colour options like fluorescent and metallic. This feature of offset printers allows them to give hues beyond the usual range of colours. The content of colours and shades that offset printing can offer is much higher than any other printer. This unique advantage makes it a popular choice.
What Are the Disadvantages of Offset Printing?
The disadvantages of offset printing include inferior image quality when compared to the rotogravure and photogravure printing technique. If not cared for, the anodised aluminium plates undergo chemical oxidation, and their propensity becomes sensitive. The time and cost involved in producing printing plates are high.
What is Better Digital Printing or Offset Printing?
Both printing techniques offer good results; choose the printing method depending on your requirement. For smaller orders, it is advisable to choose digital printing as it has a shorter turnaround time. For larger orders, it is better to go with offset printing as the set-up time becomes a minor component for the overall time. Over the decades, comic book printing has evolved in response to changes in publishing. One of these changes is through using higher-quality paper for books which can hold up longer and be preserved for a long time as collector's items.
Conclusion
Offset printing is a viable printing solution for large scale orders as once the plates are ready, it provides consistent, high-quality results. For large orders, the downtime is less as the ink levels can be controlled by the operator, thereby saving time spent on changing cartridges. The newer generation printing machines have considerably reduced the plate loading time, making offset printing an excellent option for your printing needs.
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