Digital Printing

Digital printing is a recent introduction. It is the most significant technology for printed media production. The term refers to systems and equipment that produce printed sheets or rolls of paper and other substrates, by using different technologies for imaging, with the usage of one or more colors. Furthermore, the term digital printing includes printing-imaging processes, where film and plate making processes are eliminated and where printing or imaging follows the pre-press production process.

The printing industry prints newspapers, magazines, books to brochures, labels, newsletters, postcards, memo pads, business order forms, checks, maps, T-shirts and packaging material. The industry also consists of establishments that provide printer services like embossing, binding, finishing, and prepress services.

Lithographic printing establishments that print a wide variety of products including newspaper inserts, catalogs, pamphlets and advertisements make up the largest segment of the industry, accounting for about 31 percent of employment and about 39 percent of total presence. Establishments offering primarily digital printing, which is the latest technology for printing constitutes the smallest segment of the industry and generates about 4 percent of total employment. Much of the work of this segment is characterized by low volume, often taken on by very small outlets. Another type of printing is ‘quick’ printing. Quick printing establishments generally provide short-run printing and copying with fast turnaround times. Most commercial printers are now equipped to handle digital printing. Printing processes today use scanners and digital cameras to input images and computers to manipulate and format the graphic images, prior to printing. Digital printing is transforming prepress operations as well as the printing process. It eliminates much of the lengthy processes in transferring print files to the printing press, by directly transferring digital files to an electronically driven output device, bypassing the traditional prepress operations.

Digital printing has emerged as a complementary solution to traditional printing services for customers with special needs, including short runs, faster turnaround and on-demand printing of personalized marketing communication. Digital printing is a fast, flexible and cost-effective process. It has a myriad of applications, from black-and-white printing to short run color printing that is cost-prohibitive and uses traditional processes. The real power of digital print technology is the ability to access the market quickly with printed material targeted directly to consumer interest. Variable digital printing is a cost-effective way of producing on-demand, personalized communication that improves response rates. Digital printing requires minimal press setup and has multicolor registration built into the system. This eliminates many of the time consuming processes and permits quick response and in-time print delivery.

Digital print processing requires less or no color overlap scanning and optical character reading or OCR software. Digital files are easy to transport and communicate. One can send digital file to any digital printer on the planet within seconds. This permits distribution of design to many locations for quick response

Digital printing encompasses many technologies. These include various forms of inkjet, thermography, electrophotography and electrostatic printing, ionography, magnetography and digital photographic imaging and developing. None of these requires a physical master. Instead they rely on digital data to create images.

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