Digital Printing: More Than Just an Ink Jet

When the layman thinks about digital printing, an image of a small desktop printer, ink cartridges, and white paper may be what most commonly comes to mind. However, this method of printing has only been available to the masses since 1976. Despite being one of the most common printing methods used today, only around 9% of pages printed annually are printed digitally.

The process of printing a non-tangible, digital image onto a physically tangible surface was a great advancement for countless industries, such as photography and film. The main difference between digital and non-digital printing is that digital printing does not use any printing plates whatsoever to transfer the ink. This process is computerized.

As you can imagine, there are advantages of obviating the printing plate. First, removing the step allows for faster production and shorter turnaround. Second, you don’t have the additional labor, materials and operational costs of making and operating a printing plate and blanket. Digital printing is ideal for smaller scale production, as opposed to mass media such as newspapers, or books that need to be produced in the tens of thousands.

Additionally, you will find greater accuracy in digital printing due to the precision of lasers and mechanized ink jets. Accordingly, you will find that many reproductions of pieces of fine art such as paintings, photographs, drawings, or any two dimensional works are often printed using digital printing due to the high quality and exactness of the printing process itself.

Digital printing lends itself to the advertising sector as well, because of its capability for variable data printing. This enables the printer to print mass personalized material such as the same messages, addressed to different people, or messages with different numerical values but with the same body content.

Signage used in retail advertising such as point of purchase signs, banners, and promotional materials are often produced digitally. Our digital printing service at Performance East has been available upon our founding, and is always improving and upgrading with the newest, most advanced technologies. Visit Performance East at www.PlasticPrintingNY.com 800-221-9670