Printing products have long been part of everyday life. Newspapers, magazines, mailbox advertisements, business cards, flyers and catalogs of large stores - every person has at least once come into contact with this. The importance of printing for advertising goods and services is difficult to overestimate. Well-designed printed materials can attract more attention to the company as a whole or its individual products. Through such communication channels, potential consumers learn about the appearance of a new product or service, about discounts, points of sale, promotions and technical specifications, for example, when it comes to household appliances. So how does a product like this come to be? Who creates it? What method is used for this? The answers to these questions can be found in the article below.
What is this
This technology is one of the main types of printing production. When using the gravure printing method, text, illustrations, graphics and other symbols are transferred to the original surface using printing elements,located in the recess in relation to the gaps. This is the hallmark of this method. In other words, this is a kind of "reverse printing", when the imprint is left not by the protruding, but by the recessed part of the intaglio printing form.
Working principle
During the printing process, ink is poured into all the printing slots, and also covers the gaps. Since all whitespace elements are located on the cylinder in one level, they form a grid to support the knife that removes excess paint. This knife can be made of plastic or steel.
The quality of the resulting print depends on the thickness of the ink layer. The more "bold" layer the printing elements are covered with, the higher the quality of the resulting image will be. With a perfectly executed transfer, it is possible to transfer all shades of colors, gradient transitions and even complex effects around the text ("glow", "shadows" and so on).
A trip to history
The gravure printing method was first applied in 1446. Then he had a different, more understandable and familiar name - engraving. The first such sample was made on copper. Until the 19th century, only manual engraving methods were used. The recesses of the printing elements were obtained using cutters, lapidaries, dry needles in combination with chemical etching. The type of engraving could differ depending on the type of product received: lavis, aquatingta, etching, and so on.
For the first timethe "print form" method was invented in 1878 by E. Rolfos and E. Mertens. They received their patent in 1908, calling the invention a squeegee. It was a pigmented way of making a printing plate. What was its peculiarity? Squeegee made it possible to create a grid of white space elements using rasters.
Further development of technology
Progress in gravure printing technology is directly related to scientific innovations: the invention of the laser, the improvement of computer technology, which allowed the use of electronic screening programs. It also gave me a chance to combine this technique with others.
Now on the printed form, a structure was obtained that provided the lineature with an imperceptible raster on the print. The use of low-viscosity inks produced smooth lines that were "jagged" with other printing methods.
This technique is indispensable when performing works containing small text, complex rasters, gradient transitions and openwork drawings.
Gravure varieties
The following methods are especially widespread:
- Metallography. With this type, gravure printing elements are created by etching, engraving or burning on a plate using a laser. Further inks with increased viscosity and stickiness are used, which form a relief without absorption and can reproduce perfectly smooth and fine lines on the print.
- Deep autotype method. Differs in different depth and area of printingelements. The raster is applied to the form using etching, laser or electrochemical engraving. Most often, this method is preferred when it is necessary to produce large print runs, since autotype helps to increase the "endurance" of the printing plate. For other purposes, it is rarely used due to the longer manufacturing process.
- Pad printing. It is a combination of offset and gravure printing. With this method, the ink is transferred to the surface to be printed with the help of an elastic tampon. Used to obtain images on complex forms: flasks, pens, lighters, small gift accessories.
- Elkography. One of the most difficult ways. It is based on the division of the form into printing and blank elements by changing the physical properties of the ink used, which is applied evenly on the cylinder. Coagulation, that is, thickening, occurs under the action of pulsed radiation and the further exposure process.
Technological features
Paper quality has only a minor effect in gravure printing. Even if fairly cheap paper is used, the result can be pleasantly surprising. Gravure can also be beneficial for very large runs of flyers, booklets and other printed products.
Basic principles of the process:
- This method is based on the use of a special form on which the printing elements are in the recesses, and the space elements form a "grid".
- The deeper the printed parts sink, the more saturated the colors of the desired image or text will be.
- The thickness of the applied ink affects the hue of the image on the print.
- The print form is completely covered with ink; it fills both the recesses and the entire "mesh" surface.
- Excess paint is removed with a squeegee.
- The image is broken into separate pieces thanks to the raster.
- The printing process takes place on roll and sheet-fed gravure printing machines.
- In some cases, a manual method is used, for which liquid paints of a special composition are used.
Application areas
The technology implies a direct interaction between the printed material and the printing cylinder, which provides an almost photographic quality of the resulting image or text. It is suitable for various materials: wallpaper, coated or uncoated paper, plastic, cardboard, banner fabric. Due to the ability to work on such a vast number of materials, leaflets, packaging materials, catalogs and magazines, leaflets and booklets, POS materials and HoReCa elements are created using gravure printing.
In addition, this technology is suitable for printing on complex surfaces: bottles, flasks, pens, figurines, musical instruments and so on, which makes it indispensable in the modern world of printing. At the same time, however, it is practically not used for the production of small print runs due to the high cost of consumables.materials.
Duplication
The tangible benefits of gravure printing are felt with print runs over 100,000 copies. With fewer quantities, offset printing will win financially, but lose in terms of quality.
Also, gravure printing is rarely used for replicating black and white small printing forms, as a printing duplicator allows you to cope with this task faster and at lower economic costs.
