MyPrintingTutorials.com-Printing Tutorials Offset Printing Digital Printing A Guide to Offset and Digital Printing

Ricoh’s color copier/printer machines seem to provide a high quality output even from their entry level machines. The newest color copier/printer machine that we bought was the Ricoh Aficio MP 2030. The machine cost around Rs. 2,80,000/-. It may cost less than that in some other places. The drawback of this machine is the high cost per copy. An average A4 size page costs around Rs. 2.5/- at 10 percent coverage. But the output is excellent considering its low price. The maximun printing size is 12″x18″. It can print on various papers such as offset art paper. The use of offset art paper makes the cost of paper very low as digital papers are quite expensive. The printing engine is laser based. Color copy quality is also quite high with close color reprodution of the original. The cost of the color toners comes to around Rs. 8500/- per piece. The black toner is cheaper at around Rs. 2400/-.

Posted under Digital Printing

We recently purchased Ricoh’s black and white entry level copier cum printer Ricoh Aficio MP 1600L. The price of the machine was around Rs. 70,000/-. The cost per page including drum and developer changes cost for an average A4 size document with around 5 percent coverage comes to around 32 paise (Rs. .32/-). This is excluding the cost of paper. An average A4 size copier paper costs around 30 paise or less depending on local prices. The maximun printing size is A3. The drum and developer have to be changed at around every 70,000 impressions. The cost of the drum and developer comes to around Rs. 8000/-. The machine gives very clear and fine prints of text. Photo quality is also not bad. The cost per page is very minimal compared to a black and white laser printer. As a printer we are also using it for technova offset master printout. Toner scatter and other problems start to increase as the run length comes around 70,000. That is when we have to have a complete servicing and change the necessary parts.

Posted under Digital Printing

Digital Printing has become a very profitable business especially when you have to print in small quantities. Digital printing could mean inkjet or laser printing. As for now the benefit in cost is in laser printing. At the lowest end will be the color laser copiers that are being sold in the market by various manufacturers. At the high end will be the digital production printers offered by companies like Hp and Xerox with printers like the Hp Indigo and the Xerox iGen4. The Hp Indigo starts from about Rs. 8,000,000/- (Eighty Lakhs or Eight Million Rupees). For small printers the Digital presses like Xante Illumina, Xitron Prism and the Xerox DC242 may be more feasible. The Xante Illumina and the Xitron Prism comes under Rs. 800,000/-. The Xerox DC242 starts from Rs. 1,400,000/- (Fourteen lakhs). All these printers print 12″x18″ size paper. The cost per page come around Rs. 8/- irrespective of ink coverage under the company policy where we have to give this amount to them. The cost of digital paper comes to about Rs. 3/- per 12×18 inches sheet. These small digital printing presses are suitable in India for only around maximum 200 tabloid pages per job because the cost of offset color printing is very low here. However for small repeat jobs they are very profitable. The quality of the color copiers at a lower range are not that acceptable for a print shop.

Posted under Digital Printing

Most commercial printers print at 300 dpi which is suitable for 150 to 175 lpi. So in order to get a photo printed at 300 dpi the final resolution of the photo after resizing should not be less than 300 dpi. When you resize a photo after scanning the dpi increases or decreases depending on whether the photo is scaled down or scaled up. That is unless you re-sample the photos in Photoshop by clicking the re-sample button. Re-sampling up is not advised unless absolutely necessary and even then the photos should not be re-sampled up more than 10 percent otherwise the quality will deteriorate. Re-sampling down is alright but should be done after the image has been finally edited.

Now if suppose a 7×5 inches photo is to printed at 300 dpi then we have to scan the photo at 300 pixels per inch. However if the photo is to be enlarged to 14 x 10 inches then 300 pixels would not be sufficient as when the size is increased the dpi will go down, in this case, to 150 dpi. So in order to maintain the same dpi the pixels have to be increased. A 14 x 10 inches photo at 300 dpi requires 4200 x 3000 pixels (14×300 = 4200, 10 x 300 = 3000). To get this pixels the 7 x 5 inches photo has to be scanned at 600 pixels per inch ( 4200/7 = 600, 3000/5 = 600).

As a rule when the photo is going to be resized at twice the length and twice the breadth the pixels have to be doubled. So scanning resolution of 300 ppi becomes 600 ppi when the length and breadth of the scanned picture are to be doubled.

Posted under Digital Printing, Offset Printing

We have been using the Epson 7800 printer for about a year and have found it exceptional in terms of quality. The photo printouts on photo paper are just amazing. The printer has a maximum width of 24 inches. It can print full bleed 24 inches. The color reproduction is quite good. The only draw back is the cost of ink cartridges which may come to about Rs. 3400/- for one. There are a total of eight cartridges – Cyan, Light Cyan, Magenta, Light Magenta, Yellow, Light Light black, Light Black and Photo or Matte Black. The printer can print on canvas too and numerous other media including back lit film. Back lit film from Technova is however not available at present in 24 inches width.

The printer can also be used for color proof copies. It is used in Technova’s Polyjet System also though the maximum dpi of 2880 x 1440 may not be high enough for 150 lpi. The cost of ink at 100 percent coverage comes to about Rs. 40 at 1440 dpi. The cost of the printer is around Rs. 200,000/-

The printer does not have a maximum printing length which depends only on the supply of ink and paper but we have experienced that some complications arise when printing at more than eight feet length. It may be because of the software. I have not been able to find out for sure.

Posted under Digital Printing