Printing can be done in many ways but in this fast-moving world digital printing has taken over and is used very commonly. But what is digital printing? It is also a method of print digital images (from digital files from your pc or either you made them yourself) and using them as a source to print wherever we want.
Digital printing is more in demand now since it is cheaper than lithography and has already taken over most of the market. It does not rely on press plates or setup sheets.
Interesting! Right? But how does it work? Its pretty simple too. A raster image is used which is sent to the printer with digital files. The toner in the printer forms a thin layer on the surface, and the fuser fluid is used to prevent the toner from adhering to the surface. In digital fabric printing the print heads move back and forth across the fabric, the print heads contain many colors (a spectrum of different colors) which are then printed onto the fabric. There’re many advantages of digital printing above screen printing.
Digital print technology is pretty fast and can help print a load of data in less time. It is used for on-demand printing since it gives a better quality and prints in less time. Distortion of the images does not occur which is one of the benefits of digital print method. This printing technique is used by many different industries, one of which is presented above (fabric) but it also plays an important role in metallic printing. This technology is also used for textiles.
Digital printing is an ideal platform for personalization, we can modify our data and images too. With all these benefits it also has its disadvantages but with time they are quickly disappearing too. As mentioned above the toner uses different colors, the ink colors are cyan, magenta, yellow and black. These are the major colors, but it also uses orange, blue, and green too. For metals, dry inks are used which can be easily printed to give a clear shiny look.
The fabric digital printing industry has exploded, every t-shirt nowadays is being digitally printed and sold. Other than t-shirts, some printers can even print on polyester and linen too. The biggest difference between digital print technology and other printing methods such as offset, lithography, flexography, or letterpress is that there is no need to replace printing plates in digital printing. Whereas, in the traditional printing the plates are replaced every time which is very time-consuming and costs more.
It evolved from digital proofing technology from Kodak to these fine art printing machines. Some applications of the digital print industry include:
- Commercials – For businesses or promoting any product
- Fine art
- Architectural design – Printing wall murals and floor designing
- Sleeking – It is done when a rich black area is digitally printed where the user needs the sleeking to be done
- Print on demand – Like printing books/children’s books/front cover pages
- Variable data printing – Personalization of printed material
- Advertising