On the new trend of graphic printing technology

Talking about the new trend of graphic printing technology

release date: Source: China paper industry

although computerization and digitization in today's era have simplified or deleted some processes of traditional graphic reproduction and color packaging printing technology, reduced a lot of air and noise pollution and liberated the heavy labor of mankind, graphic printing is still a relatively complex and cumbersome work. Today, China's paper industry starts with packaging and printing. Let's introduce the relevant contents in detail

nevertheless, with the electronic industrial revolution in the past ten years, modern graphic printing technology has also undergone earth shaking changes to meet the needs of the market climate, including: (1) short production cycle; (2) Print on demand (print as much as you need when you need it), and do not keep too much inventory; (3) A larger proportion of short edition (i.e. small and fragmented printing); (4) Customers should cooperate more closely with graphic printing companies (such as fuyunda). Note: thanks to the development and popularity of fashionable design and typesetting software (such as Adobe's PageMaker typesetting software Photoshop Image processing software), customers now understand and master the prepress layout design work better than the vertical universal friction and wear experimental machine from Jinan experimental machine factory, which is driven by the spindle system. Many large-scale multinational companies' marketing and public relations departments have staff responsible for design and typesetting tasks

most of these reforms adopt high-tech electronic and computer technology, which makes the process flow more intuitive and accessible, the manufacturing process more simplified, the production cycle greatly shortened, the labor and economic costs relatively reduced, the quality control more accurate, and the more complex printing visual and texture effects can also be achieved

factors affecting the effect and price of printed matter

in addition to the production and quality control process, the factors listed below can significantly affect the production cost and final effect of any printed matter, and the customer is the ultimate decision-maker of these factors: (1) the quality of printing media (generally referred to as paper) -- this is related to vision, texture and printing methods; (2) The size of printed matter is related to the specification of media materials (such as paper size); (3) Content merging requirements --- simple typesetting or complex typesetting; (4) Color and ink --- black and white, color, whether it needs color separation. Ordinary ink, light ink or special printing ink such as gold, silver, Yingguang and other printing inks; (5) Printing methods --- offset printing, letterpress printing, gravure printing, silk printing, ammonia printing, digital printing, electrostatic laser printing, inkjet printing, etc; (6) Binding methods --- hot melt binding, horse riding binding, thread binding, hardcover, etc; (7) Quantity ----- paper printing generally starts from 1000, and small quantities are calculated per 100

of course, the quantity of printing required by customers directly affects the feasibility of the other six options and the economy of manufacturing cost, but after all, under a certain reasonable printing quantity, the quantity will not have a great impact on the final effect of printing. Now let's take a brief look at the other six elements:

(I) print media

in the process of graphic printing, the selection of print media is a very important part. The printing effect and cost of printed products will also be affected by the printing method and the printing media used, so we should have a basic understanding of the printing media

there are many kinds of printing media, the most common are paper and paperboard, followed by cloth, fiber materials, plastic sheets (films), metal skins and the surfaces of all kinds of electrical appliances common in daily life

at present, the media used in printing is mainly paper. All kinds of paper have their own uses, and there are many kinds of paper, including coated paper commonly used in high-end color printing (commonly known as pink paper), which is chemically coated paper pressurized by rollers. Its surface is extremely smooth and shiny, so it is generally also called glossy coated paper. The surface of glossy coated paper can obtain a very smooth but non gloss effect after additional processing. It is called matte coated paper (commonly known as matte paper), which is suitable for color printing of fine dots

the classification of paper is generally divided into the following points: (1) paper, (2) weight, (3) paper size and (4) purpose. The name of paper is often named according to its purpose; In addition to coated paper, there are also book paper, book filling paper, paper, cardboard, book cover paper and special leather paper (such as British Congo paper). The use weight range depends on the purpose. It can range from the thinnest 45gsm (each is the grams per square meter used to evaluate the flame spreading ability of bundled cables under specified conditions) to 300gsm thick cardboard. Commonly used sheet paper for color printing, weighing 128gsm or 157gsm, 80gsm to 128gsm for black-and-white printing, 70gsm to 120gsm for letter paper, 100gsm to 160gsm for envelope and 160gsm to 250gsm for business card New energy vehicles with printed books are the development trend of the automotive industry, and the paper weight is usually slightly lighter than that of printed leaflets

the choice of paper affects the printing method, ink and other post press processing processes, including the cost of printing delivery

(II) print size

the size and thickness of the printed product directly affect its appearance, production process and production means. For tasks with large quantities, the selection of materials should be as close as possible to the size and specification of the finished product, so as not to waste materials (paper) and incur additional processes

(III) content splicing (plate making) requirements

the selection of pictures, the use of fonts, and the arrangement and combination of graphics and texts will affect the visual form, theme awareness, and the overall communication effect of the final print

how to choose and combine the elements of the above printed matter depends on the information that customers want to convey to the audience through the printed matter, the expected communication effect, and the communication art techniques provided by designers

(IV) color and ink

there are roughly two methods to express the desired color with printing ink: (1) use the basic four-color ink of printing color, mix points and overlap overprint to make the desired color tone; (2) Mix printing ink, use spot color printing, and use solid color or dot to express color. These two methods are different in printing design, color designation or plate making methods. In principle, color printing uses four basic colors --- yellow, magenta, cyan and black to produce ever-changing colors. Therefore, through color separation plate making and four-color overlapping restoration, color prints can faithfully reproduce the hue of color photos. However, some special colors such as gold, silver and fluorescent colors cannot be composed of basic four-color ink overprint, but must be printed with spot color ink

in monochrome printing, in addition to the deepest field and white, different points can be used to make different shades of gray (halftone) to express the level of the image. The expressive ability of multicolor printing is better than that of monochrome, but the ideal effect can be obtained only by proper application and designation; In the design, we should find some standard color overprint guidelines as a reference, and use appropriate points to increase the color changes

the ink color on the printed matter can be expressed by the dot ratio of each basic color in the four-color mixing table. However, different kinds of inks, media, printing methods and production equipment may print different four-color mixing tables. Therefore, a standardized and professional method is needed to develop a set of four-color mixing tables or color codes as recognized reference standards, so that everyone can accurately communicate the printing ink color through a unified color language

Pantone · r company of the United States is an expert in formulating color coding system, and provides a variety of color coding manuals of four colors, six colors and spot colors printed in different media for the leaders respected in the printing industry

(V) printing method

in addition to selecting appropriate printing media (paper) and ink, the final effect of printed matter still needs to be completed through appropriate printing methods

there are many types of printing, with different methods, different operations, and different costs and effects. The current printing methods can be divided into relief printing, gravure printing, lithography and hole printing: (1) relief printing, the image is higher than non image printing (2) gravure printing, the image is sunken in the layout (3) lithography printing, the image is not raised or sunken (4) hole printing, the image of oil and ink through holes

since the invention of wood engraving movable type printing technology in China, the printing methods have changed with each passing day. Nowadays, the most commonly used industrial printing methods are:

1 Offset printing (also known as offset printing)

lithography, which can clearly restore the color, contrast and level of the original with high precision, is the most common paper printing method at present. It is suitable for posters, introductions, brochures, newspapers, packaging, books, magazines, calendars and other related color printed materials

2. Letterpress printing is a kind of letterpress printing technology, which is generally used when there are many words, few photos and pictures, large opportunities for text changes, and a small number of prints. It is suitable for small batch tasks such as printing invitation cards, business cards, labels and small packaging boxes. Traditional serial number printing and small trademark overprint are carried out in letterpress mode

3. Silk printing

one of the hole printing technologies, the printing ink is particularly thick, and it is most suitable to make prints with special effects. It is particularly suitable if the quantity is small and the ink color needs concentration. It can also be printed on the three-dimensional surface, such as square boxes, boxes, round bottles, cans, etc. In addition to paper, it can also print cloth, plastic fabrics, plywood, film, metal sheet, glass, etc. Common new products include banners, brocade flags, T-Shirts, corrugated cartons, soda bottles and circuit boards. The flexibility of silk printing is unmatched by other printing methods

4. Rubber plate printing is a kind of relief printing, which is only suitable for printing plastic bags, labels and large and small plastic packages. Usually, the media input into the rubber plate printing machine is packaged in rolls rather than single sheets, and it is necessary to cut them one by one after printing. The fineness of printing points and lines is far inferior to offset printing and letterpress printing, and cannot be used to print books and periodicals

5. Gravure printing

is suitable for printing high-quality and expensive prints. Whether it is color or black-and-white pictures, the effect of gravure printing can be comparable with photographic photos. Due to the high cost of plate making, the printing volume must be large, so it is also a less commonly used method. It is suitable for printing securities, stocks, gift certificates, certificates of commercial reputation or stationery, etc

science and technology are developing rapidly. Today, we can use some of the above printing methods to output directly on the media through computers. With the maturity of electrostatic imaging and laser technology, on-demand printing with small batch and high quality requirements can be achieved

(VI) binding method

the definition of binding is to connect the printed books and periodicals in order, so that they are firm, beautiful, easy to read and save. Bookbinding also includes many other post printing processing processes of finished products, such as bronzing, embossing, die cutting, month digging, fillet cutting, thread pressing, attaching paper bags, punching, etc

when making product introductions, advertising brochures and annual reports, customers must consider their use purpose, content, number of pages, paper and its weight, size, thickness, etc. If you can have a certain understanding of the binding method, you can get twice the result with half the effort in the design and arrangement

the most common binding methods in the office are flat binding (stapler) binding, rubber ring binding, iron ring binding