Lithography Vs. Digital Printing
When you are needing blueprint printing services or printing fliers or promotional materials, there are a lot of printing options, such as lithography and digital. These types of printing each have pros and cons. Make sure you choose the type of printing that will be the most cost effective, that is the highest quality, and that works best with your project specifics.
Offset Lithography
Lithography uses ink and water to create a high-quality print. An image plate is coated with chemicals that attract ink and repel water in the image area. Then, the remaining space is coated with chemicals that attract water and repel the ink. Once the image is coated with water and ink, it is then rolled on to a blanket that presses it on paper. Each color used in the design must go through this process. Usually a CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) four-color process is used to create any color imaginable.
Lithography printing takes time to set up the plates. Once the press is set up, it can print millions of prints very quickly. This makes lithography very affordable for high-volume jobs, but it is expensive and time consuming for small runs. Other positive aspects of lithography are the high image quality, the ability to use specialty papers, the spot varnishes, and the ability to do color matching. However, lithography printing has some drawbacks. It is hard to make changes because of the use of plates, its slow turnaround time, and the inability to customize individual prints.
Digital Printing
The digital printing process uses digital files and sends them straight to a printer. Digital printing has become more and more common because it doesn't need plates or proofs, and the printing can be immediate. This makes the turnaround time very quick when using digital printers. Individual digital prints from printing cost a bit more, but in a small job it is more affordable than most other printing methods are.
Digital printing allows the printer to use variable data printing. This means customizing each individual print. Digital printing allows your whole job to be completed quickly and the ability to collate your pages makes printing booklets much easier. The negatives of digital printing are that you cannot color match using Pantone colors, that it is quite expensive for print jobs over 1,000 runs, and that the image quality is lower than with lithography.
To summarize, use digital for short print runs that need to be finished immediately, and use lithography when you need longer runs.
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