Commercial Printing Processes Explained
11/30/2007
Printing services are everywhere these days. It seems like every week there is a new company crusading to get your business.
The Commercial Printing sector has become widely competitive over the past few years. Here are some more tips to help get you started in making smart choices with Business Printing Products.
Step 1- Decide on the Right Printing Service
If you are really serious about creating a professional desktop publishing file format for the commercial printing process you want to do a little research on the various printing methods that will reproduce the finest commercial printing for you. One of the
most common types of offset an digital printing people elect to use a commercial printing company for is printing in photo colors or CMYK color process. Once you decide on which printing company you will use for your brochure, poster or newsletter talk directly to a press-press specialist for a brief summary on how to make files properly prepared for their commercial printing process. There’s a good chance that each printing business may have slightly different preferences in terms of digital files that are optimized for their pre-press equipment. Instead of spending the time learning all of the in’s and out’s of electronic publishing the printer’s staff are usually more than happy to explain the easiest and best way to send digital files directly to them.
Step 2- Pre-press file Preparation
Is file preparation which can include pre-flight file checking, ripping, font checking and auto-trapping. Some printing and publishing operations are equip with CTP (Computer -to-plate) and some are not. CTP eliminates 1 traditional pre-press step from the preparation process. No film or stripping is required which means that your printing order can expediently have printing plates on the printing cylinders at lightening speeds.
During this part of file preparation you may want to opt in on a hard copy proof. This can often give you a better idea and piece of mind on the finished product. Some of the common hard-copy proofing methods include Laser / Digital Printers or Fuji proofing. No matter what proofing option you choose it is always recommend that you see one or more proofs prior to printing.
Note: Another important question to find out is number of up on a sheet.

Some times the commercial printing firm may want you to provide a fully imposed press sheet. In this case you may want to pay a little extra to have the printer impose the digital file for you if you are not familiar with terms such as bleed, trap or n-up.
Step 3- The Printing Process
We are going to use a sheet fed printing press to describe the principles of offset printing. Today’s printing presses are very automated yet still require the final authority to print from a human. After your digital proof is approved we move into production. Plates are made, mounted on the cylinders of the printing machine, colors are lined up and dialed in and your project begins the commercial printing process.
Step 4- Post Press or Finishing
Depending on the nature of the printing order there may be some finishing required. Common print finish methods include , padding, folding, numbering or cutting. Unless special print finishes such as Aqueous coating are used a freshly printed product usually requires drying times of 1-24 hours before any necessary operations can be performed
Overview
Now that you are armed with this information, you can now make dealing with the Printing Process a lot more bearable and perhaps even end your problem with the selection of the finest Business Printing Products.
Paper Printing True Facts
A rainbow is a prime example of sunlight passing through millions of prisms raindrops to make a spectrum.
A spectrum of colours that shimmer because of the diffractive of light is known as iridescence.
Tags: machine press printing, operator press printing, press printing software, digital photo printing, commerce paper, printing ink, offset printing







