Printing Methods
Flexo Stack 4 spot colours. Flexographic (flexo) printing is a form of printing that uses a flexible printing plate to transfer the ink onto the substrate being printed. It is used for printing on many different types of substrate including plastic, metallic films, cellophane and paper. The printing capability is lower than lithographic printing, typically achieving only 40DPI on the most basic printers, rising to 120dpi on the most advanced. We use 2 types of flexo printing press, a stack printer and central impression (CI) printing press.A type of multi-colour press used in flexography in which all the colour stations—from one to eight stations, with six being the most common—are oriented in a vertical stack, the substrate passing through each one, which lays down successive colours. Some stack presses comprise two parallel stacks, the web of substrate taking a U-shaped path through the press.Each colour station possesses its own independent set of inking rollers, plate cylinder, and impression cylinder. They offer quick setup which is great for short runs; however they tend to have a lower DPI for tone work and are unable to maintain tight registration.
Rotogravure 6 colours import.The most popular type of rotary printing press, it is mostly used only when the print runs are very high, usually in excess of a million impressions. This is largely due to the very high setup costs; however it does allow very fast printing and better printing then flexographic printing.Similar to flexo in the fact that a print roller transfers the print onto the printing material, however with rotogravure printing, the cylinder itself is metal and engraved with the image. Cells are engraved into the cylinder which collect the ink off the ink tray and transfer it onto the substrate. Even solid areas of print are printed in this method which means that a screen pattern can be visible even to the naked eye. More often this type of press is used in the Far East where production costs of the cylinders are much lower making it more cost effective. The printing stations are set up in a line allowing tight registration to be maintained.