Digital printing services can be used for nearly any form of printing need. Unlike traditional printing methods like lithography, flexography, gravure, or letterpress that use specific printing plates and pressed images from the plates, digital printing does not need plates or other traditional set up materials. The need for printing plates is replaced with digital print files.

Digital print starts by crafting an image on a high-resolution design file. The image is then provided with crop and bleed marks. Crop marks are lined that outline the edges of the print material and these lines trim off unwanted colour bleed in the final trimmed document. The imposition process then occurs to ensure that as much paper as possible will be used, to minimise printing wastes. The image file will then be converted to a BMP, TIFF, JPEG or a GIF and is finally sent off to the printer. Fine art ink jet printers or industrial laser jet printers are two common printer styles used in digital printing. Digital printing is a modern form of printing that provides a streamlined process, which cuts down on the costs of plates, films, colour proofs and more while offering faster turnaround times. These are some of the largest benefits of utilising digital printing services.

Turnaround

One downside to traditional printing methods is a prolonged turnaround that can take several days or even weeks. The average turnaround time for large digital printing projects is three days, though many providers can offer in-house production that can shorten the turnaround time to one day or even same day service. Digital printing allows for your printing needs to be satisfied without the same equipment or process requirements of traditional printing methods. This streamlined printing process results in more print materials made in less time.

Quality

In the past, digital printing has been said to lack the ability to provide as detailed print materials as some traditional methods. Though, with technological advantages in recent years, digital printing can match and even surpass every traditional method available. Digital printing can also over more closely copied to be made as well as a more consistent level of printing detail in large print products, such as catalogues and even large brochures.

Personalised Print

Digital printing offers a range of easily customised components that allow digitally printed materials to perfectly resemble your specific printing needs. Your print sizes can be easily reformatted to suit small cards, all the way to large tradeshow banners. Various dye cuts, metallic and gloss finishes can be offered with digital printing. Over 3,000 different material substrates can be selected to develop your one-of-a-kind graphics and finished print products. The print fonts, content and images can be efficiently changed, which makes digital print files ideal for annual or otherwise repeated mail out campaigns or for a variety of print materials for a trade show booth.

Price

The quantity selection, efficiency and ease that digital print offers means that your printing needs will be handled at lower costs than traditional printing methods. Digital printing happens fast, which lowers labour costs. Without the need to set up with plates or films, digital printing is less costly to complete. Traditional print methods required large printing quantities, for the processes to be profitable. Though, the efficiency of digital printing lets companies offer any relative quantity selection, which can lead to much lower costs.