Commercial Advertising Printing Process Technology Analysis

With the development of economy, high-end printing technology has been applied to many fields. For high-end commercial advertising prints, it can better reflect the quality of products, attract consumers' attention, and play an important role in promoting product sales growth and market development.

In the past 10 years, the commercial printing market has been gradually formed and developed rapidly. The market share has rapidly increased from less than 1% 10 years ago to the current 15%. At present, high-end commercial advertising prints are mainly used in administrative prints such as luxury cars, senior cosmetics, fashion consumer electronics, communications, IT technology, high fashion and luxury goods industries, and some of the world's top 500 corporate annual reports. High-grade commercial advertisements and other printed materials have beautiful pictures, coordinated pictures and pictures, and high picture clarity. The pages are neat and smooth, and the reading and turning pages have a good feel. The binding and exquisite design give people a beautiful enjoyment.

The amateurs watch the excitement and the insiders watch the door. The so-called high-grade prints can not only be a certain link, a certain process can be upgraded as high-grade prints, but also must be matched with each other on a multi-layered surface in order to be called a boutique. This article will summarize the characteristics and process technology of high-end commercial advertising prints from the perspective of specific technology.

Prepress processing

1. Original collection

Printing is the reproduction of manuscripts and the re-creation of art. From the point of view of elements, one of the most important prerequisites is high-quality manuscripts. The manuscript here refers to electronic manuscripts or photo manuscripts. It is mainly for actual real-life images. The pictures are all large-scale reversal films or high resolution digital photos. Of course, some of them are generated using 3D industrial design software, but the premise is based on the high-quality picture materials obtained by the aforementioned methods. For this reason, it takes a lot of money to prepare the manuscript, such as hiring a professional photographer and using top-level photographic equipment. The manuscript created in this way is not only saturated in color, but has an appropriate contrast. The most important thing is that it is excellent in definition. High-quality manuscripts have laid a solid foundation for the creation of exquisite high-grade prints.

2. Proofing and color management

In the all-digital prepress environment, the reduction of the original color of the picture and the control of the color of the re-created manuscript are the biggest difficulties. In theory, when the original is collected, if it is an electronic manuscript, the color space described by the color light mode is larger than the color space where the ink can be restored on the paper. Therefore, a part of the color must be compressed. In addition, when the original is collected, there will be errors in the recording of the color. If there is no good way to correct this error and use it for color separation printing, the final color of the final product must be far from the original. If it is a manuscript created using a computer, there is not a display that is highly consistent with the print based on color data, and it is difficult for a designer to grasp the true effect of his creation. The prepress system, which uses a color management system (CMS), automatically compensates the display based on the characteristics of the device at each stage of the printing to more accurately simulate the final product.

3. Pre-press and printing, post-press correlation technology

CTP adopts standard technologies to ensure that the network points are restored to the maximum extent possible. JDF is also a mainstream technology that can describe all production processes from the submission of job tasks to prepress, printing, and postpress. The method is to convert every step in the production of a job into a node in a JDF file. A JDF node is an XML element and can be related information about the production process, such as staples, folding, cutting; it can be related to Product information, such as the final print, can also be both. Through the pre-setting of the pre-press stage, the later production process can be made efficient and automated, and the failure caused by human factors can be reduced. These two technologies have been widely adopted in developed countries and provide good conditions for the production of high-grade prints.

Color copy

The common feature of multi-color printing is to increase the color rendering range by increasing the base color. At present, a printed matter must be printed with at least 6 colors before it can find a place in the “high-grade print” field. A large number of spot colors are used in the company logo standard color, large-area background color, VI system main color, and small The text avoids the visual discomfort caused by the dispersion of the edge patterns produced by screen printing. With it, use 6 colors, 8 colors or even 10 color printing machines.

In recent years, due to the emergence and maturity of HI-FICOLOR technology, normal photo printing can also be extended from ordinary CMYK color separation mode to CMYKRGB 7 color separation mode for printing, and the original color gamut can be restored to a greater limit. .

Printing materials

The vast majority of high-grade printed matter in developed countries is mainly coated paper (coating paper and matt coated paper). The purpose is to obtain good printability to restore high quality image originals. Although the international call for the use of recycled paper is higher than a wave, but in this high-grade prints, it is still based on the use of plain paper made of pure wood pulp, its fiber length, has a good stiffness, and its white Degree, smoothness and cleanliness are very high.

In fact, we cannot simply think that such paper is not environmentally friendly. In Europe, the production of such paper must also follow the green policy and be certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). Internationally, this high-grade coated paper is best known in the Nordic countries, such as famous brands such as Anna, UPM, and Stora Enso. These papers can hardly be distinguished from the ordinary grade papers by the human eye. However, technically, high-grade coated papers are more complex than ordinary coated paper production processes, and the uniformity and layering of paper coating can be improved. Embodies the printing uniformity and layering. The general high-grade coated paper will have two coating processes, and the top coated paper will be coated three times in production to ensure the high smoothness, high whiteness, good tear strength and low ink absorption of the coated paper. The amount and quick-drying make it have a high quality printing effect and the best printability. The high smoothness keeps the refractive index at any angle of the surface of the paper consistent, and the color of the ink printed on the paper looks quite uniform and saturated. Therefore, once the printing on the machine, the performance and printability performance is very obvious, especially in the high quantitative (above 250g/m2) and low quantitative (105g/m2 below) paper is more prominent. Koenigbauer Printing Machinery (Shanghai) Co., Ltd.

In addition to this, senior office papers from the United Kingdom and Sweden are also widely used in official documents such as annual reports. For example, brands such as “Ganggu” are mainly made of stripes and slippery surfaces, and a few are used for frame binding.

Screening technology

Developed countries are based on mature high-end printing technology environments, such as the widespread adoption of CTP, and the commercial application of UV printing and waterless offset printing technologies. These prints generally adopt the traditional high-line number screening of screening and screening (300 lines/inch or more). , even up to 400 lines/inch. With this accuracy, it is difficult for the human eye to be able to distinguish between the conventional line of sight (about 10cm from the surface of the paper) with the conventional 175 lines/inch or 200 lines/inch screen lines. Distinguished visual disturbances such as outlets, network lines, rose spots, and moire.

Some prints use FM screening technology. After the emergence of this technology in the 1990s, it was not widely used due to the limitations of the technology and printed materials at that time. However, there are already a large number of high-precision prints that have begun to use this technology and can present details with a higher degree of detail. Since the distribution of dots is random, the traditional rosettes, moiré and other interferences of the traditional amplitude modulation screens interfere with the details. The phenomenon has been fundamentally solved, and it is even better in terms of gradient performance.

Printing Technology

As mentioned above, the production of a high-grade print is not isolated, but it is coordinated with each other. When the original, color separation, screening, printing paper and other factors have reached high standards, the printing link is the key to restore the color and graphic content.

UV printing technology is widely used in the production of high-grade prints. Its biggest advantage is that instant curing of ink dots can be achieved. In multi-color printing, especially in online printing with more than 6 colors, high ink transfer rates can be achieved. Saturated colors can also avoid smudging and adapt to shorter delivery times. The most important point is that the dusting step is removed, so that the final product is highly clean. When reading a page, it can be as delicate and smooth as a white paper, and it will not feel astringent like an ordinary print. These outstanding advantages are the reasons why UV printing technology is favored by people and the technical foundation for creating high-level prints. In addition, scented ink printing technology has also been applied to advertising prints of some premium cosmetics and luxury cars.

Although rotary presses can achieve higher production speeds, up to 50,000 rpm will reduce the ink transfer effect, and paper creases caused by heating and drying will also reduce print quality, so the true high-end prints are all the same Both use sheetfed printers. On the one hand, these high-grade prints are unlikely to meet the demand for ordinary prints. On the other hand, they ensure the reduction of images and images.

Finishing

Only these are not enough, the top prints will generally be partially or completely polished on the key graphics, to increase the protection of the graphic ink layer, improve reading durability, and also can play a beautiful role. Currently used on-line UV coating process is widely used. On-line UV coating based on offset printing principle can achieve high flatness and high-definition outline edge, and it has unique advantages in overprinting accuracy, compared with the effect of offline UV coating commonly used in domestic screen printing technology. There can be a world of difference.

Online hot stamping process application is essential. The role of hot stamping in the binding itself is the finishing touch, highlighting the essence of the body, and the online hot stamping is not only highly efficient, but also can effectively ensure the overlay accuracy. The laminating film generally adopts the precoating film cold laminating technology. On the one hand, it conforms to the environmental protection requirements; on the other hand, it also avoids the strong odor caused by the traditional laminating technology.

Binding processing

From the product form point of view, the binding of these high-grade prints is nothing more than bookbinding, hardcovering and saddle stitching. There is nothing special in the form, but the quality is reflected in the details, such as the accuracy of the folding, the error of the drawing, and the basis Accurately calculated page creep compensation for paper thickness and number of folded pages (of course, this is pre-set at prepress), and the glue formula selected according to the type of paper to ensure long-term firmness of printed products; consider carefully The convenience of the target readers for archiving after reading, saddle-stitched and rubber-bound printed matter plus U-nails for easy collection in international standard two-hole folders, etc.

The entire production process and technology of high-end commercial advertising prints in developed countries has condensed almost all the advanced technologies in the world's printing industry. Due to multiple restrictions on the cost of technology introduction and the degree of support for various process links, at present, there are not many printed materials with these comprehensive capabilities and technologies at home. Chinese printing companies must participate in the international market competition, they must continue to learn and draw on the technical content of high-grade prints, adopt cutting-edge printing technology, continuously improve product quality, and increase added value, which is also the overall direction of the development of domestic printing enterprises. .