Hybrid Printing – Clarification
A student raised the following two queries after reading my article on Hybrid Printing.
- How does incorporating digital printing unit in a Flexo or offset press help in getting a wider gamut of colors as you have mentioned in your article.
- You have mentioned in your article everywhere – Digital Or Inkjet. How do you differentiate those two ?
The following clarification is thus given for the benefit of other students:-
1) The wider gamut of colors can be additionally achieved by Digital printer on prints which can not be achieved by Offset or Flexo printing because the quality of ink used and the print method -direct spraying of true colors by different means- on Digital prints are different. Therefore their reproduction especially of solid colors are far greater and richer than the direct prints obtainable with plates or rubber stereos. In certain job work, the customers may require enhanced appearance of colors for some reasons in local spots and therefore in standard print process of Flexo or Offset, after printing the colors, the pre printed sheets are again fed on to the machine to print with another set of plates to add additional colour effect required in those local spots. See the illustration shown below to understand it.
Similarly during printing, when the customer suddenly seek for certain reasons of trade, that enhancement of colors on certain areas (see arrow) in few thousand copies were needed and then again ask for similar enhancement in some other areas, in such a situation the printer can only print the lots and then use another set of plates to print the enhanced colors as required by the customer.
Instead if the machine had been fitted with Digital print units, then simultaneously those areas where the enhancement of colors were required can be printed in one go, simultaneously printing enhanced colors on local spots with Digital printing along with regular printing either in Offset or by Flexo.
2) The Digital printer is a general term that encompass all kinds of Desk-jet, laser and inkjet printers which are all the subheads or subtitles of Digital Printing. The difference in them is their own manner of printing with toners or ink filled cartridges. Digital printers attached to the computers can receive wireless data through internet from anywhere like drop boxes, cloud vaults and other such satellite linked storage systems where the customers has stored their data and then directly print them on the same machine.
Only the pattern of printing differentiates the printers within its broad term. For example while the Laser printers work by using a light beam, drum, and toner to print, the inkjet printer takes a traditional ink cartridge to print on substance by showering droplets of ink through the fine nozzles on the cartridges or ink storage devices.
Therefore the term Digital and Inkjet were only expressions of broader printer and specific printer.
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