How Offset Printing Works
The most common type of printing, offset printing, is a unique, and interesting process. Saturday, May 17, 2008
Offset printing is used to make nearly every major publication in circulation. Next time you are flipping through a magazine, pay attention to the page layout, as it was made by offset printing. Catalogues are another common customer of offset printing. Without this form of printing, we may not be able to enjoy all the magazines, catalogues, and other publications that we currently do!
Offset printing starts with the creative process. Before anything can be printed, it must be written. Writers decide what they are going to write on a topic, and organize it into an article form. Once the words have been written, it is sent in to a graphic designer, who then decides what pictures, if any, will go on the page, and where they will be. Once the images are designed and placed within the page, it is ready to be sent to the printers.
A completed article, graphics and words, is then entered into the real meat of the offset printing process. The images and words are put onto plates that are then moistened by water, and then ink. The ink will stay on the image area, where the water stays on the non-image area. >From here, the plate is used to transfer the image to a rubber blanket, which acts as a go-between. The rubber blanket is used to place the image on the paper. This is what gives the process the name "offset", as the image is not directly transferred to the paper, but instead deals with the blanket, acting as an intermediary.
There are many forms of plates used in the offset printing process. Some are film negatives, others look like giant blueprints. There is one for each color, used to blend all the colors together into the final product. A detailed explanation of how the plates work, and what they are, can be found on the Internet, as they are perhaps one of the most complicated (though interesting) parts of the printing process.
Offset printing is what enables most modern printing to take place. Without the invention of offset printing, our modern printing capabilities would be drastically reduced, both in quality, and in quantity!
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