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Litho Printing

At RevPrint Claremont, we use litho for a wide variety of projects. We can do up to 5+ colour printing on A3+ paper size with a variety of finishes. We do single and multi-colour spot printing and inline varnishing. We also have use of inline numbering allowing us to produce invoice and docket books for your company.

CMYK blocksFor full colour printing, the Litho process lays down individual separations of colour, CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow and key or simply:black). If your company requires specific spot colours for branding purposes, we abide by the Pantone industry standard. The Pantone Color Matching System is largely a standardized colour reproduction system. By standardizing the colours, regardless of your location, one can refer to the Pantone system to make sure colours match without direct contact or original samples.

Colour Matching

Advantages of Litho Printing:

  • Lower cost per unit for longer runs (Unit cost goes down as print quantity goes up)
  • Better Quality with higher image resolution
  • More paper options (Most digital devices require special papers and smooth finishes, which makes linen and laid finishes challenging or not possible)
  • Pantone Spot Color and Metallic Ink options (Not all colours can be built from CMYK, no matter how hard you try!)

Contact Us for more information on our Litho Printing service, or have a look at Digital Printing for a continuation on our range of printing solutions.

 

How Lithographic Printing Works:

Printer PlateLithography is best described as a planographic process; this is nothing more than a process for printing from a smooth surface, called a plate, to a substrate, generally paper. The process is simple and is based on the elementary principle that oil and water do not mix.

In lithography the plates are coated with a photosensitive (light sensitive) emulsion. This emulsion is a suspension of two chemicals that cannot be mixed together, these plates are what a negative image is ‘burnt’ onto and used in the first step of ink transferal in printing.

Plates are made by exposure from a light source with a film (positive image on an acetate type substrate) on top of the plate. This creates a photographic negative of the desired image, releases the emulsion, and transfers a positive image to the emulsion. The emulsion is then chemically treated to remove the unexposed portions of the emulsion. This final step is similar to developing film at a photo lab.

Offset print diagramWhen the printing plate is made, the printing image is rendered grease receptive and hydrophobic (water repelling). The non-printing areas are rendered hydrophilic (water attracting), and ink repelling. On the press the plate is mounted on the plate cylinder which as it rotates, comes into contact first with the rollers wet by water, which adheres to the negative portions of the image. Then the plate comes in contact with the roller coated with ink, which adheres to the positive portions of the image.

If this image were directly transferred to paper, it would create a positive image, but the paper would be moistened. Instead, the offset cylinder covered with a rubber surface, called a blanket, is rolled over the plate. The blanket squeezes away the water, and picks up the ink.

The cylinder is then rolled over the paper, transferring the ink. Because the image is first transferred to the blanket cylinder, we call this process “offset lithography” because the image is offset to the drum before being applied to the paper.

 

Designed To Print