UNIT 2

Type High

0.918"

Ground

is a coating applied to a plate to protect it from the action of the acid (mordant) used in etching

Types of Products Printed by Rotogravure

newspaper supplements, Sunday magazine sections, magazines, brochures, postcards, cardboard product packaging

Web-fed Offset Press

paper is fed through the press as one continuous stream pulled from rolls of paper

Sheet-fed Press

prints on discrete sheets of paper that is pre-cut (or other substrate)

Teletypewriter

typewriter like device used to input / print data transmitted over telecommunication lines

Electromechanical Engraving

uses an electronically-controlled diamond-stylus to cut the the cells into the surface of the gravure cylinder

Flatbed Scanner

An optical scanning device used to convert an image (photograph) to digital form, in order to allow later manipulation and output as part of a page, as a color-separated image, or by itself

Gravure Screening Process

breaks the image into thousands of microscopic dots; when etched in acid, these dots become cells varying in depth and diameter which gives the tonal effect

Typical Products Printed by Letterpress (10)

business cards, letterheads, billheads, proofs, posters, announcements, embossing, hot-leaf stamping, imprinting, forms

Line Arrangement of Type

centered, justified, unjustified, asymmetrical

Ink-Jet Printing Process

- buffer - clean cycle - control circuitry - print head stepper motor - parking

Brayer

a small, hand-held roller used for distributing and smoothing ink / other fluid

Direct-To-Plate

a technology in which electronic page info, is used to guide lasers in the direct imaging of a printing plate, eliminating the need for a negative to be produced

Linoleum

a thick material consisting of a coating made of linseed oil and powdered cork

Anilox Roller

an engraved metal/ceramic roller used in flexographic printing presses to transfer ink from the fountain roller (or directly from the fountain) to the printing plate

Doctor Blade

any flexible steel, rubber, plastic, or other type of blade / scrapper used to apply or remove a liquid substance from another surface

Types of Products Printed by Collotype

- 1sheet / 2-sheet 3-sheet posters - POP, POS displays - transparent prints in back-lighted displays

Driver

- A computer software utility or program that operates a specific attached peripheral device or interface - The peripheral device requires certain commands and signals in order for it to function - the driver serves as an interface between the main computer / application (such as a word processing program) and the device itself, interpreting and processing the data from the application to the appropriate form for the proper operation of the device - translates the data into a format that the printer can understand - checks to see that the printer is online and available to print - Sends the data from the computer to the printer via the connection interface (parallel, USB, etc.).

Scanner

- A device used to analyze an original image and digitize the image and store it in a computer for later manipulation and output - image scanners (images as bitmap), text scanners (utilizes OCR) optical character recognition

Lithography

- Aloys Senefelder - 1st Press in 1800's (two workers) - 50 acceptable copies in 12 hrs - Drew design by hand on limestone with a greasy crayon and placed it (plate) on the press - Then covered it with water + gum arabic solution - liquid flowed off the greasy image but covered the non-image area - then inked the plate with a leather roller - ink was repelled by the wet non-image areas, but stuck to the image-areas

Parts of a Typical Flat-bed Scanner (14)

- CCD array - mirrors - scan head - glass plate - lamp - lens - cover - filters - stepper motor - stabilizer bar - belt - power supply - interface ports - control circuitry

Process Colors

- Cyan (a turquoise hue) - Magenta (a purple hue) - Yellow - Key (traditional word for Black printing plate)

Rotogravure (Rotary Gravure)

- Webfed gravure printing utilizing a cylinder to carry the image, used for the economical printing of long-run jobs - the fastest + widest presses in operation, printing everything from narrow labels to 12 feet (4 m)-wide rolls of vinyl flooring. - most performed gravure printing today

Point Size

- a basic unit of measurement in typography for measuring the size of type and typefaces - 12 points in a pica - popular type sizes: 5pt - 72pt - body text: 14pt and smaller - a measure of the height of the characters of a font (depth)

OK Sheet

- a color proof / early press sheet that is evaluated by the printer + the customer as to the quality of the color reproduction - once "okayed" by the customer, it is then used as a color guide for the pressrun - color OK / pass sheet

Laser Printer

- a common type of computer printer that rapidly produces high quality text and graphics on plain paper. - A computer-driven, plain-paper output device used to generate proofs, masters, or general on-demand output

Flat Color Printing

- a form of color printing in which color dots are not printed on top of each other; each colored ink is printed as is -- it is used to refer to multi-color printing using these four process colors but without overprinting them, so that each color only is reproduced as itself

Stenciling

- a method of transferring a pattern by brushing, spraying, or squeeging ink or paint through the open areas of a stencil cut from thin metal / cardboard - is a simple method of repeating a design by means of a cut out shape (stencil) - the word means "outline of an image" - used in screen printing

Letterpress Plate-Making

- a photographic negative is brought in contact to light sensitive metal plate - the plate + negative are exposed to a light, which passes through the clear part of the negative and strikes the plate - the exposed areas are now light-hardened - plate is now dipped in an acid bath - the hardened image area is impervious to acid, while the remaining area is etched to the desired depth, leaving the image area raised - plate is "blocked" (mounted on a piece of wood or metal) - making it type high (.918)

Color Masking

- a photomechanical method using equipment and special filters to control or modulate color contrast and detail over the total area of each separation negative used for printed color reproduction. - used primarily to reduce the contrast of transmitted light so that maximum reproductive value for reflected light can be attained - also used to heighten contrast when this quality is lacking in the transparency - may be either positive or negative, depending on the desired correction - tone correction, color correction and sharpness enhancement

Color Correction

- best time is before separation - on unscreened separations by masking / retouching - on screened ones, through dot-etching

Squeegee

- a tool possessing a wooden / metal handle to which is attached a thin, flexible rubber / plastic blade - to force ink through the printing screen and onto the substrate - shape of the blade is a factor that affects the thickness of the ink deposited + the sharpness of the printed image - the configuration of handle depends on printer comfort

Ink-jet Printer

- a type of computer printer that operates by propelling tiny droplets of liquid ink onto paper - concept originated in late 1980s

Flexography

- aka aniline printing - utilizes a flexible plate, usually made from soft rubber or plastic and a quick-drying ink - uses flexible rubber relief plates and highly volatile, fast-drying inks to print on a variety of substrates - commonly used in package printing - diagram

Diffusion Etching

- aka conventional gravure engraving - two film positives= image + gravure screen (100:200 lines per inch) - The screen converts the solid image into many tiny cells which are small squares oriented at a 45º angle to the direction of web travel through the press - The positive image + the screen are placed on top of a carbon tissue (a water-soluble paper covered w/ a light-sensitive gelatin) resist, and consecutively exposed to UV light

Letterset

- aka indirect letterpress - quality of letterpress (relief eliminates the need for ink fountain and permits heavier deposit of ink + convenience of offset - Relief plate transfers image to rubber blanket which is offset on paper - offers consistency in paper quality + color - ideal for printing on metal / plastic - Offset press can be modified to letterset - Used in packaging industry - A hybrid of letterpress printing and offset lithography that uses a metal relief plate mounted to a plate cylinder to transfer the ink to a rubber blanket

Collotype

- aka photogelatin - Continuous copy can be reproduced without the use of screen - principle: "Moisture and ink don't mix" - aluminum plates coated with gelatin solution - The relative softness or harness of gelatin dictates continuous tone value:The softer areas accept more water and less ink; Harder areas accept less water and more ink - Image is transferred directly from plate to paper

Silk Screen Printing

- aka screen printing, serigraphy, mitography, selectine - uses the stencil principle - Stencils are bonded to a screen for support and then stretched over a wooden frame to create a smooth flat surface - A squeegee is then used to force the ink through the open area of the screen onto the surface to be printed - Slower than other process but has unique and versatile advantages - ideal for street designs, posters and wallpapers

Woodcut (xylography)

- an illustration carved in relief on a block of wood, with lines and shapes of varying thickness, used to make prints - an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood, with the printing parts remaining level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges. - aka xylography - The block is cut along the grain of the wood. - ink drawing is made on a block of wood; artist cuts away uninked areas, leaving inked areas raised. Printing ink is applied to the raised surface; a sheet of paper is laid on the surface to take an impression by hand / press

Imagesetter

- an ultra-high resolution large-format computer output device - exposes rolls or sheets of either photographic film or bromide paper to a laser light source

Stamping

- any finishing operation involving the use of hard metal dies to press an image into a surface / substrate - hot metal, hot leaf

Character

- any individual letter, figure, punctuation mark or other symbol in that typeset

Principles of Printing

- any printing or imaging process... - relief, intaglio, planography, stencil

Matrix

- any type of mold used for casting metal type - in typesetting, a metal mold / photographic image of a type character used to generate copies of that character

Relief Printing Process

- areas to show 'white' are cut away with a knife / chisel, leaving the characters / image to show in 'black' at the original surface level - surface is covered with ink by rolling over the surface with an ink-covered roller, leaving ink upon the flat surface but not in the non-printing areas

Why is Color Important in Printing?

- attracts attention - creates sales appeal - clarifies complex design - highlights specific points - adds a decorative touch

Improvements in the 1st Lithographic Press

- automatic dampening - an inking system - level scraper blade - introduced by Senefelder

Makeready

- collective term for all of the operations necessary to set up a printing press for printing, including- inking + ink adjustment, dampening solution adjustment, ink roller adjustment, plate + blanket cylinder adjustment - other procedures performed to preclude the need for wasted time and paper once the job itself has started - also involves printing color proofs and ends with the client signing an OK sheet

Magazine

- comes from arabic and italian words meaning "storehouse" - refers to a container in which the type matrices are sorted and stored

Gravure

- commercial printing form of Intaglio - uses curved plates / etched cylinders which are photoengraved - entire plate is inked and wiped clean with a doctor blade, leaving ink only in etched areas - done on a rotary press - screening process, cylinder-making - diagram - adv: prints high quality image even on low quality paper - disadv: if paper surface is coarse + imperfect, the image is not transferred (fixed by GRO's rotogravure electrostatic assist)

Offset Printing Process

- common use today - the inked image is transferred (or "offset") from a plate to a rubber blanket, then to the printing surface - principle that oil and water don't mix - When the printing plate is exposed, an ink receptive coating is activated at the image area; the plate is dampened, first by water rollers, then by ink rollers; Ink adheres to the image area and water to the non-image area - Diagram - pressrun, inking process, offset process

Stencils

- cut by hand / photographicaly - nylon / silk / dacron / fine mesh material

Types of Imagesetters

- desktop - small format - large format

Flexography Plate-Making

- digital: computer-guided laser to etch the image onto the plate - photochemical - molding: Master mold used to make plates

Offset Prepress Prod

- document must be converted to film and then plates (4 for CMYK) - photographically; light is allowed to pass through the film negatives to expose the printing plate; When the plates are exposed to light, a chemical reaction occurs that allows an ink-receptive coating to be activated resulting in the image transfer

Photographic Separation

- done by a process camera / enlarger / contact printer

Types of Color Printing

- flat color / match color - 4 color process

Types of Scanners

- flatbed - sheet-fed - handheld - drum

Typesetting Methods

- from wood - hot metal composition - mechanical composition - teletypewriter (telecommunication) - photo-mechanical composition - cathode ray tube composition - advanced photocomposing

Characteristics of Letterpress

- high speed in b/w print jobs - consistent quality - expensive printing plates - printed from handset / machine set type as well as photoengraved plates - proofing is less expensive

Dry-point Engraving

- image in incised into the plate / matrix with a hard pointed needle, sharp metal or diamond cut

Process Color Printing

- in which dots of one color are overprinted on dots of one or more other colors to produce blends - The printing of "full color" images utilizing a photographic color separation process in which each of three primary colors—cyan, magenta, and yellow, plus black—are separated from the original art and given their own printing plate. Successive runs through the press or multiple printing units lay down inks of each of these colors in combinations that allow for the reproduction of many colors of the spectrum

Wood Engraving

- ink is applied to the face of the block and printed by using relatively low pressure - uses an engraver's burin (Chisel) to create very thin delicate lines, and often having large dark areas in the composition - Thomas Bewick's illustrated fables

Silk Screen Inking Process

- inks are heavier making printing on a wide variety of surfaces possible - metallic + fluorescent inking is possible - Due to opaque quality of ink, white or any light color can be printed on a dark surface in one application

Letterpress Plates

- involve photography + engraving = photoengraved plates - Zinc for linecopy + coarse screen work - Copper for high quality line work (easier to etch) - Magnesium for detail (when is imp) - basic types: platen, flatbed cylinder, rotary

Typesetting

- keyboarding / other means of assembling copy into a printable form - type can be set by hand / typewriter / phototypesetter / by computer

Word Spacing

- measuring or setting the amount of space between words - accomplished by inserting pieces (spaces/quads) of metal (lower in height) bet - hair space: the thinnest space which can be made (0.167pica / 0.5point) - em spacing, en spacing - en dashes, em dashes

Gravure Cylinder-Making Process

- methods: diffusion etch, direct transfer, electromechanical, laser process

Thermography

- more of a finishing process - designed to simulate raised printing by dusting the wet printed ink film with a resin-based powder and fusing the resin particles together with heat to produce a raised effect - Image is printed with a slow-drying ink and then dusted with powdered resin - used for business cards, invitations, greeting cards, decorative papers - finish can be dull / glossy

Cover (FB Scanner)

- most are flat white, few are black - provides a uniform background that the scanner software can use as a reference point to determine the size of the document (being scanned) - most FB scanners allow the cover to be removed for scanning a bulky object (a page in a thick book)

Measuring Type

- points, pica, inch - type - face - type high - body / x-height - set width

Technique in Roogravure

- power source is connected between the cylinder and impression roller - a conductive covering must be added to the impression roller - an electric charge is created behind the web, which forms an electric field at the nib - Nib width b/w the cylinder and the impression roller; Amount of nib width is determined by hardness of impresson roller + amount of pressure - Nib width is adjusted to give best quality image on web stock - The charge pulls the ink around the edges of each well, which causes ink to rise and transfer to the paper

Imprinting

- printing additional information on an already printed piece - like adding a company name and logo to a brochure

Planography

- prints from a flat surface - lithography, offset lithography - based on the principle that oil and water do not mix - artist employs a metal matrix, made of zinc or aluminum, and draws on it using ruche - The ruche retains ink or pigment and repels water, while the remaining surface area accepts water, producing a clean or blank background

Intaglio

- prints from an etched surface - techniques: etching, aquatint, soft-ground, dry-point - gravure - the italian word means "engraved" - the image to be printed is incised into the plates, the incisions filled with ink, and excess ink wiped from the plates. - The area of the image to be printed is recessed (etched/engraved using chemicals/tools) into the surface of the printing plate; the recessed areas are filled with ink - Heavy pressure is applied to transfer the ink from the plates to the paper, leaving the surface slightly raised and the back side slightly indented

Types of Products Printed by Flexography

- production: newspapers, comics, newspaper inserts, directories, catalogs - packaging: folding cartons, labels, corrugated containers, paper sacks, plastic bags, disposable cups, adhesive tapes, envelopes, wrappers

Handheld Scanners

- same basic technology as a flatbed scanner rely on the user to move them instead of a motorized belt. This type of scanner typically does not provide good image quality. - can be useful for quickly capturing text.

Half-toning

- screening of negatives to break into dots

Aquatint

- similar to etching - uses powdered resin which is acid resistant in the ground to create a tonal effect

Direct Transfer Engraving

- single positive system - chemical process - just like diffusion etching, but diff is in the composition of resist - uses high resolution + high contrast photopolymer emulsion (instead of carbon tissue)

Leading

- spacing between lines - type w/o leading = solid - achieved by placing metal strips of varying thickness - leads in sizes 6 or more = slugs (6, 12, 24, 36) - common sizes= 1, 2, 3, 4 - leads + slugs are less than type high and thus do not print

Em Quad

- square of a type size (in points) - a fixed space having a height and a width equal to that of the point size - en is half the size of em - used for paragraph indents

Laser Technology (8)

- text is entered into a computer by means of an appropriate word processing software program - when read to have a copy printed, a special computer chip within the printer projects the text onto the drum (any printing cylinder) -laser beam replaces the reflected light as in a photocopier - the laser doesn't move but the beam is directed rapidly across the width of the drum by a spinning mirror - when the beam reflects on to the drum, the areas that would correspond to the white portions of the paper (non-image area) temporarily uncharged - from this point, acts like a photocopier - with this technology, expensive film is no longer needed - almost all the "cutting + pasting" is eliniated

Pressrun

- the actual printing of the desired number of copies of a print job, immediately following makeready - the length of a particular pressrun may need to be taken into account to gauge production costs (POE) - web-fed / sheet-fed

Differences between Letterpress and Flexography

- the plates (deformeable, soft Vs hard) - inks (pasty Vs low-viscosity) - inking system (unique Vs conventional)

Etching

- the process of using strong acid / mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio in the metal - uses a needle to make lines that print in black (or whatever color ink is used), - often combined with aquatint or engraving

Letterspacing

- the space between typeset letters or other characters - positive / negative - kerning, tracking, leading

Soft Ground

- this technique is made with a softer ground, the artist puts a piece of paper over the metal plate and draws on it - an acid resistant coating made of asphaltum, rosin, beeswax, and tallow (keeps the ground from drying to a hard surface) - has the character of a pencil or crayon drawing - The longer the soft ground plate is exposed to the acid, the deeper and wider the line becomes

Relief

- transfers an image to a substrate by means of a raised image-carrying surface - prints from a raised surface - woodcut, wood engraving, linoleum-cut - flexography, letterpress

Basic Parts of a Flexographic Press

- unwind + infeed section: The roll of stock must be held under control so the web can unwind as needed; sheet-fed also - printing section: Single color station including the fountain, anilox, plate and impression rolls - drying station: high velocity heated air for specially formulated inks - outfeed + rewind section: Similar to the unwind segment, keeps web tension controlled

Lamp

- used to illuminate the document - new: xenon lamp / cold cathode fluorescent lamp (CCFL) - older: standard fluorescent lamp

Linoleum-Cut Printing

- uses a sheet of linoleum for the relief surface - a design is cut into the linoleum surface with a sharp knife, V-shaped chisel or gouge, with the raised (uncarved) areas representing a reversal (mirror image) of the parts to show printed - the linoleum sheet is inked with a brayer; then impressed onto paper / fabric; can be done by hand / press

Bindery

- where the printed product is completed - a facility where binding and finishing operations are performed, following printing - in offset, huge rolls of now-printed paper are cut and put together so that the pages fall in the correct order - pages are also bound together, by staples or glue, in this step of the process; trimming

Character Components

- word spacing - letter spacing - leading

Letterpress Printing Process

- works on the relief - principle that oil and water don't mix - a reversed, raised surface is inked and then pressed into a sheet of paper to obtain a positive right-reading image

Color Separation

A means of dividing a full color photograph into four separate components, corresponding to the four primary colors used in process color printing—cyan, magenta, yellow, and black

Mordant

a corrosive liquid used to etch the lines on a printing plate

Ruche

a greasy substance used in planography that repels water and retains the ink / pigment

Drum Scanners

a high-end optical scanning device used to convert an image to digital form, so as to allow later manipulation and output as part of a page, as a color-separated image, or by itself

Process Camera

a large camera used for graphic arts photography, such as shooting negatives + positives as a prelude to platemaking, making color separations, or screening continuous-tone images into halftones

Platesetter (in Direct-to-plate)

a machine which receives a raster image from a raster image processor and in turn, creates a lithographic plate suitable for use on an offset press.

Resist

a paper, emulsion / other substance that can be rendered light sensitive, exposed to a film positive, and developed so that when the exposed substance is applied to the surface of a gravure cylinder, the unexposed image areas are soft and soluble, while the exposed, non-image areas become hard and insoluble

Offset Lithogrphy

a printed image is transferred first to a rubber blanket, and the blanket then transfers (or "offsets") the image to the paper or other surface

Screening

a process that represents lighter shades as tiny dots, rather than solid areas, of ink

Negative

a reversed photographic image produced on acetate-based film (a film negative) or photosenistive, resin-coated paper (a paper negative)

Electronic Separation

digital scanner reads the colors in the original copy and produces screened / unscreened positive / negative separations

Sheet-fed Scanners

similar to flatbed scanners except the document is moved and the scan head is immobile. A sheet-fed scanner looks a lot like a small portable printer

Laser Cutting Engraving

the use of computer-directed lasers that cut cells of varying depths and sizes into the gravure cylinder

Offset

to transfer ink from a printed substrate to the reverse of the sheet lying on top of it