1.What is digital color printing?

All printed output from a computer is digital. Digital printer systems are mainly used for taking huge printouts with high resolutions. The advantage of digital printers over other high speed manually running printers is that it eliminates a number of mechanical steps. Unlike conventional printers, the order of the pages are maintained and segregated by the built-in software.

The process involved is simpler when compared to traditional offset printing. All that one needs to do is design and format the pages in the system and get it printed on a laser class printer. This process eliminates four major steps, Film Making, Proof Reading, Stripping and Plate Making, involved in the traditional printing process. Digital printing is used when it is a small printing job, when the urgency is great and when it is essential to personalize the design.

Different types of Inkjet, Spray Jet, Dye Sublimation, Thermal Wax and Electrostatic are few among the list. This is the primary printer currently used for home and small businesses. This is comparatively inexpensive and the quality of the color is good. Spray Jet is very much similar to Inkjet printer but the color is sprayed using spray nozzles. Dry sublimation is a method used by some designers and companies for high end proofing and for producing the best possible color materials in-house. Thermal wax printers produce high quality vibrant colors. It is used by companies that require large amounts of transparencies developed for colorful business presentations. The quality of the paper used for thermal wax printing is demanding as it requires very smooth paper or paper specially coated. Electrostatic printing is a process in which electrostatic force is used to print the /images using a toner instead of ink. High quality output is acquired and mainly used for media and package printing.

2. How do you design for digital color printing?

For digital printing, designers pioneering in the field suggest the TIFF and EPS files formats avoiding compressed file types like JPEG. Both CMYK and RGB colors can be used, CMYK being SWOP colorspace and RGB being Adobe colorspace. Experts also suggest using different resolutions for the text and the /images. The suggested resolution for the text is 600 to 1200 pixels per inch and 300 pixels per inch for the /images. Though digital printing often creates quality output, sometimes the color spread seems to be uneven when the blend of the colors is too wide and long. Texturing the background using Adobe Photoshop would resolve the problem and hide any unevenness in the spread of the colors.

Double sided printouts can also be taken. Here again, the file should be a single page containing all the pages with the front sides on the odd pages and the back side on the even pages. Presence of a blank side page should also be mentioned by leaving a blank page in-between.

Digital color printing is quality rich and greatly reduces the pre-press set up cost. This makes the service more affordable as well. The main advantage of the system is that the prints can be taken in any size ranging from a few inches to a few feet in width. The turnaround time is also comparatively less as it removes the intermediate steps involved in traditional offset printing.

3.What is personalized or variable data color printing?

As the name says, Variable data color printing (VDP) is a type of on-demand printing in which the data is changed for every print that is taken. The system enables one to change the variable data without stopping the printing process. It can be called as a higher end version of digital printing which is a combination of the computer database and the digital press. The system creates full color print outs comparable in quality with offset printing.

The variable data is pulled in two ways for printing. In the first method, both the variable and the non-variable data are sent for printing and are combined by Raster Image Processor (RIP) before printing. In the second method, both the data are combined, prior to printing, by the VDP software applications and later sent for printing. This method not only helps companies to send mass mailings with the quality of offset printing but also helps them to send customized mailings.

Variable printing can be categorized into three levels. The first level is the simplest that changes only the name of the customer with the body of the letter being the same for all the copies. The second is the intermediate level that changes the customer's name, with some changes in the mail body and a few /images. The third level is the complete customized printing method that changes the whole text and /images replacing with new text and /images pertaining to individual customers.

TOP

Variable data printing demands a wide knowledge and great experience in printing as it is different from ordinary printing. QuarkXPress is the software used for designing the page layouts. Creo Darwin and Datalogics DL Formatter are the other extensions of QuarkXPress and are used for merging the variable data with the design layouts. Templates developed in EPS and PDF format can be used as well with a stand alone application called Atlas Software PrintShop Mail.

The above discussed applications are mainly used for merging data into the page layouts that are already designed. Once the data are merged, it is ready for printing. A test of the merged data is highly recommended before printing, as the complexity of the system might lead to merging of the wrong data. There is no strict rule about the format in which the database should be developed. The database can be in the MS Excel file format or can also be as a comma delimited CSV file.

As variable data printing is mainly used for printing promotional and marketing materials that would directly be reaching the customers, high resolution /images are used for quality output. In short, variable data printing is an economic pack with all the traits of offset printing.

TOP