Comparison of printing combinations and advantages and disadvantages

From the above analysis, we can see that each printing method has its own characteristics. Therefore, printed products printed with a printing method will have the advantages and disadvantages of the printing method. With the progress of society, people have higher and higher requirements for printed matter, and there are specific requirements for printed matter. It is difficult to meet printing requirements with a printing method. Therefore, the combination of different types of printing methods and the combination of printing methods emerged.

Combination printing already exists. Such as high-end printing presses, offset printing and gravure have been applied two printing methods, the equipment is a combination of offset and gravure. Another example is a form printer that can be used for different combinations of offset, gravure, emboss, flexo, and screen printing depending on the application. However, in recent years, due to advances in technology and the diversification, multi-color, and personalized development of printed matter, the requirements and demands for combined printing have been increasing, and the combination of printing has become more and more. With the advent of digital printing, a combination of printed flowers flourished.

Combined printing refers to the use of two or more different printing methods to complete a print process. From the point of view of the craft, different stand-alone machines can be used to print in different printing modes. It is also possible to complete the printing of different printing methods at once on a single combination printer. The former has a flexible printing process, but has a high efficiency and low cost, and is suitable for many types of small batch production. The latter, the connection is completed at once, high efficiency, stable quality, suitable for relatively small variety of printed matter and relatively large print volume. The commonly used combination printing is based on two different printing methods. There are several ways to combine printing. Different combinations of line printing, will form a different combination of printing presses.

(1) Combination printing consisting of traditional printing methods: different combinations of conventional printing methods: offset printing, gravure printing, flexo printing, and screen printing. There are currently offset and gravure combinations; offset and flexo combinations; offset and screen printing combinations; flexo and gravure combinations. Such as the printing press using offset, gravure combination; form machine offset printing, gravure printing, embossing, flexo printing, screen printing of different combinations; multi-color offset sheet printing press plus flexo, screen printing combination; web Offset printing machine plus flexo, screen printing combination; flexo printing machine plus gravure combination; gravure printing machine plus flexo combination.

(2) Combination printing consisting of digital printing: Different digital printing methods are available, and different combinations are implemented as needed. For example, IBM's Infoprint 4000 is a combination of an electrostatic imaging digital printer and an inkjet printer. Two kinds of digital printing can be used to form a printing press, or it can be divided into two printing presses. This is a combination of variable graphic digital printing and variable graphic digital printing. Of course, it is also possible to change the combination of graphic digital printing and variable graphic digital printing.

(3) Combination printing consisting of traditional printing and digital printing: various combinations of various traditional printing methods and various digital printing methods. It can be combined with traditional printing and variable printing, and can also be any combination of traditional printing, invariable digital printing, and variable digital printing.

Comparison of advantages and disadvantages of combination printing

1. The main advantages

The greatest advantage of combination printing is that it can take full advantage of various printing methods, meet special printing requirements and differentiated printing requirements, and increase the added value of printed materials.

Combination printing enriches the types of printing, opens up new areas for printing, and can take advantage of various printing methods, avoiding its shortcomings, and making prints more distinctive. Its advantages are obvious and there are broad prospects for development. Such as offset printing and gravure printing combination, offset printing has the perfect reproduction ability of the subtle level of the image, especially the gradual change of the color is very soft and smooth, but the ink layer is thin, and printing the solid color blocks, it is difficult to make the ink full, uniform and consistent . This type of problem is even more pronounced when printing gold, silver, pearl ink or glazing. Using gravure and offset printing, it can be solved very well. First, with the advantages of thick gravure ink layer and stable ink color, it can print flat and full of large-area field and spot colors, gold and silver, pearl color blocks, and even do a variety of imitation metal etching effects; the use of subtle layers of offset printing, over-smooth features Mesh image and gradient pattern, so that the two printing methods complement each other and complement each other. Another example is the combination of traditional printing and variable digital printing, printing of color images using traditional printing methods, printing of barcodes, personalized information, and texts and graphics that need to be changed using variable digital printing. .

2. The main issue

(1) Printability of substrates and inks: Different printing methods have different printability requirements for substrates. Combination printing requires substrates to be adapted to different printing methods. Different printing methods have different inks, and the compatibility of the overprinting of different inks should be selected in advance. Different ink drying conditions and time are different, and connection printing must be fully considered in advance.

(2) Printing efficiency problem: The printing speeds of various printing methods in combination printing are different, and the entire printing system can only be as low as high. This affects the printing efficiency of the device. If screen printing is currently low, if combined with offset printing, the offset speed must be reduced to maintain consistency with screen printing speed.

(3) Standardization issues: Different printing methods have different printing process standards, and different printing methods have different design standards. The application of combination printing brings about the problem of combination printing process standards and equipment standards. Of course, these problems can only be gradually implemented through practice, sum up experiences, and gradually form reasonable standards.