What is Digital Printing?
Nowadays digital printing is being increasingly used in place of more traditional forms of printing such as litho. Digital printing is a modern printing technique that produces prints directly from a computer file rather than a slide or a photograph, without going through some intermediate medium such as a film negative, a colour proof or a plate. Digital printing is used for many commercial printing needs in both black and white and full colour. Superchrome can also supply specialist digital printing such as:
- large format printing such as posters, signage, canvas and acrylic prints
- extra wide printing for large scale external applications such as banners, advertising billboards, hoardings and building wraps.
Types of Digital Printing processes
There are various processes which can be used for digital printing
, depending on the intended use. The main processes are:
UV PRINTING – a high quality, cost effective full colour printing process using environmentally friendly UV inks which are cured with UV light. This makes it very resistant to fading, water resistant and abrasion so it is ideal for outdoor graphics as it can cope with all weather conditions. There are two types of UV full colour printing:
- Roll fed  -  which involves printing onto a roll of media such as PVC or fabric
- Flatbed  -  where graphics are printed directly to rigid or flexible, flat surfaced substrates
INKJET PRINTING – extremely versatile, making it a good choice for large format display graphics as it gives brilliant colour intensity and photo-realistic graphics. This process uses CMYK inks to produce full colour and can print onto a wide range of media for both interior and outdoor use.
LAMBDA PRINTING – produces the highest resolution display graphics using laser technology. It is ideally suited for large format display graphics as it gives sharp photographic images, continuous tone and high-impact colour prints on photographic paper, film or Duratrans.
Why choose digital printing?
It is easy to understand why digital printing is replacing older forms when you look at the many advantages it offers, the main ones being faster turnaround and lower production cost. Digital printing is often used for on-demand or short-run colour printing. It is very cost-effective on short print runs owing to the low set up costs and the fact that there are no minimum volume restrictions. Other advantages include;
- Choice of processes some of which can be used for high definition printing applications
- Printing can be done on many different substrates
- Waterproof and fade resistant inks can be used
- Suitable for printing materials for interior or outdoor use
- Any size can be printed including large format and extra wide format
