Can the most popular waterless offset printing occ

Can anhydrous offset printing occupy a place in label printing (Part 1)

in recent years, self-adhesive labels have been more and more widely used, which can be said to have gone deep into every corner of people's lives. In recent years, with the development of new materials, new technologies and new equipment, label printing has developed into an independent printing category

worldwide, according to the different printing methods of labels, it can be divided into three situations. In the first case, flexographic printing is the main method. The typical representatives are the United States and Canada. Its flexographic materials are mainly web materials, which are printed by the unit flexographic printing machine. The ink is mainly water-based ink. The post-processing of labels mainly adopts circular pressing and die-cutting equipment, and the finished labels are also web materials. The second case is represented by Europe, where the printing methods are mainly photosensitive resin relief printing and flexographic printing. The situation of flexographic printing is basically the same as that in the United States. Photosensitive resin relief printing is mainly based on laminated or satellite printing machines, all of which use UV ink. The printed materials and labels after production are mainly made of roll materials. The third case is the printing method based on photosensitive resin relief printing, represented by the Asia Pacific region. The ink used in label printing is still dominated by traditional resin ink, and only a few devices use UV ink. The printing materials include both web materials and sheet materials. The finished products are mainly web materials or sheet materials cut from web materials, and the die-cutting method is mainly flat pressing

at present, some labels are printed by intaglio printing and silk printing. In addition, some label printing enterprises use waterless offset printing technology to print labels, but few labels are printed in this way, mainly due to the relatively high printing cost. In the future label printing, will waterless offset printing be as common as today's flexographic printing or photosensitive resin relief printing? In my personal opinion, the possibility of anhydrous offset printing becoming the main way of label printing still exists, but it will not occupy an absolute advantage, and may become the mainstream way of label printing together with flexographic printing. The reasons can be attributed to two aspects: on the one hand, people have higher and higher requirements for the quality of label printing with a long service life; On the other hand, waterless offset printing has made great progress in technology, equipment, materials, technology, and printing quality, and has attracted more and more attention from insiders

characteristics of traditional printing methods

label is a form of commodity packaging. High quality label patterns can attract consumers' attention and convey brand value. The quality of labels depends on the design style and concept of labels and whether the color matching of labels is reasonable. The pattern and color of labels depend on printing. Therefore, the printing quality of labels is very important

there are many ways to print labels, each of which has its own characteristics. As for which way to use, it should be determined according to the specific requirements of labels in terms of printing quality, printing cost and production efficiency

1. photosensitive resin relief printing

printing method is the low printing cost, which is also the reason why it has been widely used in the aluminum door, window and curtain wall industry. However, in terms of printing quality, both color and level of detail are far inferior to other printing methods, so it is mainly used to print labels with extremely simple patterns, such as line patterns. This printing method does not meet the requirements of label development, so it will gradually shrink in the future and will not become the mainstream of label printing in the future

2. Flexographic printing

as far as the current flexographic printing technology is concerned, its product quality has two deficiencies

(1) the high gloss level of the product is seriously lost, and the printing pattern is deformed, which is related to the high elastic printing plate used in flexographic printing. The printing plate with high elasticity will lead to serious point increase. At the same time, the printing plate is easy to produce bending deformation in the printing process, resulting in print imprint deformation. Although this problem can be solved to a certain extent from the technical point of view, it still needs to be further improved in technology to completely eliminate this defect, so it also restricts the development of flexographic printing technology to a certain extent

(2) the number of lines added to the pattern is not high, and the mature number of lines added is only limited to about 133 lines/inch, so the level of detail of the printed pattern is not as rich as offset printing and gravure printing. In the pursuit of high-quality label printing today, this printing method highlights its shortcomings

3. Intaglio printing

although the ink color of intaglio printing is bright, its biggest disadvantage is that there are jagged edges on the edges of words and patterns, which affects the hierarchical details of the highlights of the printing, especially for small parts, which can be bought anywhere; The product structure is unitary, and the existence of sawtooth makes its imprint not clear enough. Therefore, gravure printing has certain limitations for high-end labels. On the other hand, the ink used in gravure printing has a great pollution to the environment, and some European and American countries have begun to restrict the development of gravure printing, so gravure printing will not do much in the future label printing industry

4. silk printing

although silk printing has the characteristics of bright ink color and good three-dimensional effect, its registration accuracy is relatively poor, and there are great limitations in overprint. Therefore, this method is more suitable for printing products with single color