Printing products have long become a part of everyday life. Newspapers, magazines, advertising in the mailbox, business cards, flyers and catalogs of large stores - each person has at least once contacted a similar person. 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 to its individual products. Through such communication channels, potential consumers will learn about the appearance of a new product or service, about discounts, points of sale, promotions and technical specifications, if we are talking, for example, about household appliances. So how does such a product come to light? Who creates it? How do you use it? The answers to these questions can be found in the article below.
What it is
This technology is one of the main types of printing production. When using the intaglio printing method, text, illustrations, graphics, and other characters are transferred to the original surface using printing elements located in the recess relative to the white space. This is a hallmark of this method. In other words, this is a kind of “reverse printing” when the print leaves not a protruding, but a recessed part of the form for gravure printing.
Principle of operation
In the printing process, ink is poured over all the printing slots, and also covers white space. Since all white space elements are located on the cylinder in one level, they form a grid to support the knife, which 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 “greasy” the layer will be on the printing elements, the higher will be the quality of the resulting image. With a perfect transfer, it is possible to convey all the shades of colors, gradient transitions and even complex effects around the text ("glow", "shadow" and so on).
History tour
The intaglio printing method was first applied in 1446. Then he had another, more understandable and familiar name - engraving. The first such sample was made on copper. Until the 19th century, only manual methods of engraving were used. Recesses of the printing elements were obtained using incisors, diapers, dry needles in combination with chemical etching. The type of engraving could differ depending on the type of product received: lavis, aquatting, etching, and so on.
The "printing form" method was first invented in 1878 by E. Rolfos and E. Mertens. They received their patent in 1908, calling the invention a squeegee. It was a pigment method for making a printing plate. What was its feature? The squeegee allowed you to create a grid of whitespace 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 a chance to combine this technique with others.
Now, a structure was obtained on the printed form, which provided the lineature imperceptible raster on the print. The use of low viscosity inks provided smooth lines that, with other printing methods, had “notches”.
A similar technique is indispensable when performing work containing small text, complex rasters, gradient transitions and openwork drawings.
Varieties of gravure printing
The following methods were especially popular:
- Metallography. With this type of gravure printing elements are created by etching, engraving or burning on a plate using a laser. In the future, paints with increased viscosity and stickiness are used, which form a relief without absorption and can reproduce perfectly smooth and thin lines on the print.
- Deep autotype method. It differs in different depth and area of printing elements. The raster is applied to the mold using etching, laser or electrochemical engraving. Most often, preference is given to this method when it is necessary to produce large runs, as autotype helps to increase the "endurance" of the printing form. For other purposes, it is rarely used due to a longer manufacturing process.
- Pad printing. It is a combination of offset and gravure printing. With this method, ink is transferred to the surface to be sealed using an elastic-elastic swab. Used to obtain images on complex shapes: flasks, pens, lighters, small gift accessories.
- Elcography. One of the most time consuming ways. It is based on the separation of the form into printing and white space elements using changes in the physical properties of the used ink, which is applied in an even layer to the cylinder. Coagulation, that is, thickening, occurs under the influence of pulsed radiation and the subsequent exposure process.
Technological features
Paper quality has only a minor effect on gravure printing. Even if fairly cheap paper is used, the result can be pleasantly surprising. Intaglio printing can also be beneficial for very large runs of leaflets, booklets and other printing products.
The basic principles of the process:
- The basis of this method is the use of a special form, on which the printing elements are in the recesses, and whitespace form a "grid".
- The more printed parts are buried, the more saturated the colors of the desired image or text will be.
- The thickness of the applied paint 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 divided into separate pieces thanks to the raster.
- The printing process takes place on roll and sheet gravure printing machines.
- In some cases, the manual method is used, for which liquid paints of a special composition are used.
Fields of application
Technology implies a direct interaction between the printed material and the printing cylinder, which provides 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 amount of materials, intaglio printing creates flyers, packaging materials, catalogs and magazines, leaflets and booklets, POS materials and HoReCa elements.
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 runs due to the high cost of consumables.
Replication
The tangible benefits of the deep printing method are felt with a circulation of over 100,000 copies. With less offset printing will win financially, but lose in terms of quality.
Also, intaglio printing is rarely used for the reproduction of black and white small printing forms, since a typographic duplicator allows you to cope with this task faster and with less economic cost.