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The Printed Image

What is the Printed Image?

Since the dawn of humanity, people have felt the need to create lasting representations of symbols and images.

Since then, printing has undergone profound transformations. Yet the printed image remains one of the most ubiquitous and economical ways to convey information, advertising, brand identity and a host of other messages. The digital revolution has changed many aspects of printing, but the need for printed content remains as strong as ever.

Printing always begins with ink, paper and a press (or more accurately a colorant, a substrate and printing system). Beyond that, the quality, cost, speed, durability and flexibility of printing technologies vary widely.

Long-run printing will continue to play an important role, but digital technologies are opening new opportunities for personalized, or short-run printing. New techniques support a wider range of printing substrates and inks. What this means is that successful printers will leverage the printed image to create new value for their businesses.

Printing Today

Most of the printed copy produced today uses one of the following technologies:

  • Offset lithography - the most widely used technology for long-run publications.
  • Flexography - a printing technique that uses flexible relief plates.
  • Electrophotography (digital) - a technology that creates an image by fusing toner particles onto the page.
  • Drop-on-Demand Inkjet (digital) - Each droplet of ink is ejected from the printhead by applying a short burst of heat.
  • Continuous Inkjet (digital) - ink is continuously ejected from the printhead. As droplets form, certain ones are directed to the print medium.

Digital printing technologies have made high-quality printing available to the consumer and to professional printshops for a growing variety of applications.

Major advances in software design, ink formulation, paper composition and innovative printing systems have opened the door to new applications for print.

The difference between professionally-printed images and those produced on personal systems has narrowed considerably in recent years.

Printing Tomorrow

The performance of tomorrow's printing systems will continue to improve. Smaller ink droplets will improve resolution; a wider range of substrates will be supported; inks and toners will become more durable. Perhaps the most important change is the predictable drop in the cost per page, which will open the way to short-run and variable-data printing applications that were not feasible with earlier technologies.

The challenge in the world of printing will be to find new ways to harness these advances to drive the printed image up the value chain. This will mean inventing new ways to leverage printing as a tool for communication, recognition and promotion.