Everything You Need To Know About Digital Printing

There are two main types of printing: digital and offset. Offset printing is the more classic type, and requires the creation of printing plates that transfer your images or text onto paper. Offset printing is cheaper than digital printing when measured in dollars, but the time that it takes and the fact that it is a somewhat complicated process make it costlier in other ways. Digital printing is much easier- it is simply the process of turning a digital page

or image into a physical copy. While more expensive, digital printing is a lot quicker and more efficient than offset printing, which is why it is often the preferred type of printing for businesses who need to make large scale print runs.

Digital Printing

Unlike other types of printing, digital printing does not actually infuse the ink into the paper. Instead, it puts the toner or ink on the surface of the paper and then uses heat or a UV light to adhere it to the paper. Aside from the cost, the only other downside of digital printing is that it does not often produce as clear of an image as other printing methods, but the aesthetic difference is so minor that nobody but a printing professional can really tell the difference.

Types of Digital Printing

The two main types of digital printing are called inkjet printing and digital laser exposure. The former is the type of printing that everyone in the modern world is most familiar with- it is literally just the transfer of a digital image onto a regular piece of paper using ink and the adherence method listed above. Digital laser exposure, on the other hand, uses lasers (as the name suggests) to expose an image onto a piece of photographic paper. This is how pictures are removed from digital cameras and put onto physical photographs that look and feel exactly like photographs that were developed in a dark room.

Digital printing is truly the preferred method for artists and businesses who are looking to do high volume print runs for flyers, brochures, banners, etc. You should check out your local printers to see if they do this type of printing. Not only is printing generally rather time consuming, printing something properly can be a difficult task for one who is not knowledgeable on all of the workings of a printer. Digital printing is preferred to offset because of the extremely fast turnaround time and consistency of the images. A company could design a new flyer, submit it to their printing company and have a few thousand of them ready for distribution the next day.

Now that you know a little bit more about digital printing, you should be able to weigh all of the pros and cons so that you can make a knowledgeable and informed decision when it comes time to make your next print run. If you have never used a print company before, consider the advantages of having a professional service print your items for you instead of having to do it for yourself.

Joe Ryan is a freelance blogger who writes on business and marketing topics