{"id":820,"date":"2023-08-08T03:47:19","date_gmt":"2023-08-08T03:47:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/diasinh.com.vn\/?p=820"},"modified":"2023-08-08T03:47:19","modified_gmt":"2023-08-08T03:47:19","slug":"offset-printing-ink-terminology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/diasinh.com.vn\/en\/offset-printing-ink-terminology\/","title":{"rendered":"Offset Printing Ink Terminology"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lightfastness<\/strong><\/b>\u00a0\u2013 The ability of a printing ink to resist fading when exposed to light.\u00a0 This is different from the term \u2018permanence\u2019 in that it specifically refers to light, and more precisely to the quality of the pigment.<\/p>\n

Color gamut<\/strong><\/b>\u00a0\u2013 This is the range of colors that a printing ink can reproduce on a given substrate.\u00a0 Most offset printing is limited by the CMYK color gamut.\u00a0 However some printers will add additional spot colors that help them push the barrier of this color gamut.\u00a0 Hence their printing presses will be configured to print more than the four colors required for process color printing.<\/p>\n

CMYK color gamut<\/strong><\/b>\u2013 Refers to cyan, magenta, yellow and black. This is the order that the inks are laid down on offset printing presses. The gamut refers to the ability of the first three colors to achieve a range of colors.\u00a0 This is a 3D model that can vary depending on the paper and ink quality.<\/p>\n

Lakes<\/strong><\/b>\u00a0\u2013 This term refers to pigments that have been mixed together by various means to give it desired properties.\u00a0 Pigments in nature are not always as pure, or have the properties desired by an ink manufacturer.\u00a0 Combining will sometimes accomplish this.<\/p>\n

Toners<\/strong><\/b>\u00a0\u2013 A term used by ink manufacturers to refer to a highly concentrated pigment that is used to alter the color strength of another ink.<\/p>\n

Process colors<\/strong><\/b>\u00a0\u2013 This refers to the combination of cyan, magenta, yellow and black.\u00a0 These colors together form the complete process for making full color images.\u00a0 Even though black is not considered a primary color, it is added to the process because it can take the place of cyan, magenta and yellow when they overlay one another.<\/p>\n

Ink fountain<\/strong><\/b>\u00a0\u2013 A part of the inking system in an offset printing press. It is the reservoir that holds the ink while it is being fed to the ink rollers.<\/p>\n

Spot color<\/strong><\/b>\u00a0\u2013 In four color process printing, this is a ink color that is added to the regular printing sequence.\u00a0 Printing presses that can run a spot color have 5 or more printing units.\u00a0 The first four are for the process colors, the remaining are for spot colors or varnishes. This is in order to push the boundaries of the color gamut.\u00a0 Or it\u2019s purpose can be for the sake of a color sensitive part of the image, such as a logo.\u00a0 The advantage of a spot color is that there is no color variation throughout the print run. There is not need for the press operator to match the color with the regular process colors.<\/p>\n

Pantone color<\/strong><\/b>\u00a0\u2013 This is color matching system developed by the Pantone Color Institute.\u00a0 It is their branded system for having a uniform color matching system.\u00a0 The institute has clearly defined various shades of color and offset printers can communicate a defined standard with clients as to a desired color.<\/p>\n

Blocking<\/strong><\/b>\u00a0\u2013 This happens when a pile of sheets had been printed and the sheets stick to one another.\u00a0 Piles of sheets that are too high can create pressure on the lower sheets that have not completely dried. This causes the ink to stick to the ones underneath.\u00a0 The underlying problem is that the ink has not sufficiently dried and then the sheets form \u201cblocks\u201d that are stuck together.<\/p>\n

Color sequence<\/strong><\/b>\u00a0\u2013 This can vary between printing presses.\u00a0 Some will print process inks in the following order \u2013 cyan, magenta, yellow and black.\u00a0 This sequence gives more priority to the color as successive inline printing units will have inferior quality as the paper passes.\u00a0 Other printers will print in the following order \u2013 black, cyan, magenta, yellow.\u00a0 This order gives more priority to the quality of the black ink being printed. This is done mostly be printers who want to give more priority to a sharply printed type.\u00a0 Each order has it\u2019s advantages.\u00a0 Almost always, any spot colors will print after the process colors.<\/p>\n

Coverage<\/strong><\/b>\u00a0\u2013 A term often used by printing press operators to refer to how much ink is covering a given sheet. It is expressed in a\u00a0percentage.<\/p>\n

Densitometer<\/strong><\/b>\u00a0\u2013 This is a device that measures the density of an ink after it has been printed.\u00a0 The device does not see color, but instead can see how dark or light a printed spot is by means of a photoelectric eye.\u00a0 They measure how much light is absorbed and return a reading to the user.<\/p>\n

Double bump<\/strong><\/b>\u00a0\u2013 When printing process inks, this refers to an extra layer of ink overtop of a regular process color.\u00a0 For example, an offset printer might want to put a double layer of cyan on an image to increase the density range.\u00a0 The reason this would be necessary is that a printing unit is only able to lay down a thickness of\u00a03.5 \u03bcm.<\/p>\n

Fifth color<\/strong><\/b>\u00a0\u2013 This is an additional spot color of ink printed immediately after the regular process colors of cyan, magenta, yellow and black.\u00a0 This can also be referred to as a spot color.<\/p>\n

Ghosting<\/strong><\/b>\u00a0\u2013 This more often than not refers to \u201cmechanical ghosting\u201d. This occurs when an ink is being laid down on the sheet of an offset press. It will sometimes produce a phantom image as the rollers go over the printing plate. This is caused by the ink being depleted from other areas of the plate<\/p>\n

Hickey<\/strong><\/b>\u00a0\u2013 This is a printing defect that is caused by a particle that is stuck to the offset printing plate or blanket. This particle will not allow the ink to transfer properly to the substrate. The hickey itself can come from the paper, dried ink skin, or any other foreign source.<\/p>\n

Lithography<\/strong><\/b>\u00a0\u2013 This is the term that describes the type of printing used by offset printing presses. It means that the method of printing is with water and ink together on a single printing plate.<\/p>\n

Offset<\/strong><\/b>\u00a0\u2013 This is refers to the method of applying the ink from the printing plate to the blanket.\u00a0 A printing plate will transfer the ink to the rubber blanket which will then roll on to the paper or other substrate.\u00a0 The reason that this offset takes place is because of numerous advantages, namely that the rubber blanket does not transfer the water, the blanket allows varying thicknesses of paper and the rubber does not wear the plate unlike the paper would.<\/p>\n

Soy inks<\/strong><\/b>\u00a0\u2013 These refer to ink that have soy bean oil as it\u2019s vehicle base. This base has become very popular and even improved on petroleum based inks. Newspaper are the biggest users of soy ink due to it\u2019s low rub-off quality.<\/p>\n

Trapping<\/strong><\/b>\u00a0\u2013 This is the ability of one ink to stick to another. In four color process printing, the first ink must be the tackiest. This is so that it can pull, or trap, the successive colors off of the printing blanket and onto itself. This is an important property in offset printing as the inks are still quite wet when laid down on the substrate.\u00a0 Only their tackiness will will properly track other inks.<\/p>\n

Undercolor removal (UCR)<\/strong><\/b>\u00a0\u2013 This is a means of reducing the amount of printing ink used in color printing.\u00a0 Cyan, magenta and yellow will theoretically produce black or gray.\u00a0 Printing black or gray instead only requires one layer of ink.\u00a0 Therefore designers will remove the undercolor process colors and just print black.\u00a0 This helps creates create sharper images and reduces ink consumption.<\/p>\n

VOC<\/strong><\/b>\u00a0\u2013 In this context, it refers to any chemicals in offset printing ink that have a low boiling point.\u00a0 The vapors produced can be toxic.\u00a0 Therefore ink manufacturers are very regulated by governments in the compounds that they are allowed to put in their printing inks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lightfastness\u00a0\u2013 The ability of a printing ink to resist fading when exposed to light.\u00a0 This is different from the term \u2018permanence\u2019 in that it specifically refers to light, and more precisely to the quality of the pigment. Color gamut\u00a0\u2013 This is the range of colors that a printing ink can reproduce on a given substrate.\u00a0 … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":382,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[26],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/diasinh.com.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/diasinh.com.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/diasinh.com.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diasinh.com.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diasinh.com.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=820"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/diasinh.com.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":821,"href":"https:\/\/diasinh.com.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820\/revisions\/821"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diasinh.com.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/diasinh.com.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diasinh.com.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diasinh.com.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}