Learn about offset printing technology in print design

Offset printing is the most commonly used method today and has many advantages over other forms of printing, especially when we need consistent and high image quality.

Offset printing is a printing technology in which an image is printed on a printing plate, on rubber, cylinders and then transferred to paper or other material. The rubber cylinder offers great flexibility and allows printing on wood, fabric, metal, leather and sandpaper.

The process of offset printing

The offset printing process consists of several parts

• Ink system (ink fountain and ink roller);
• Damper system (fountain and water roller);
• Plate cylinders;
• Compensating cylinder (or blanket cylinder);
• Impressive cylinder.

Implementation process

In this process, the ink is transferred from the ink fountain to the paper in several steps:

• The inking and humidifying systems will put the ink and water on the offset plate on the cylinder plate.
• The plate cylinder transfers the ink onto the blanket to cover the compensation cylinder.
• Then the paper is pressed into the compensating cylinder with an impressive cylinder,
• transfer ink onto paper to form printed images.

Advantages of offset printing

Another advantage of offset printing is the ability to adjust the amount of ink on the fountain roller with the screw keys. Most commonly, a metal blade controls how much ink is transferred from the ink chute to the fountain roller. By adjusting the screws, the distance between the blade and the fountain roller is changed, resulting in the amount of ink applied to the roller increases or decreases in certain areas. Therefore, the density of the color in the respective area of the image is modified. On older machines the screws are adjusted manually, but on modern machines the screw keys are electronically operated by the machine-controlled printer, allowing much more accurate results.