The Digital Printing Process and Associated Benefits

What are Digital Printing Technologies?

Digital printing is a process that involves the creation, storage, transfer, and reproduction of printed images in a digital format to allow fixed or completely variable information to be printed on a label without printing plates. Plateless digital printing technologies come in a variety of formats, including:

• Digital offset (Indigo printing process)
• Inkjet
• Direct thermal
• Thermal transfer
• Thermal dye sublimination

The majority of recent developments in digital colour printing using powder and liquid toner digital presses and colour inkjet printing equipment has become of most interest to the label industry – particularly in the narrow and mid-web sector. In fact, in more recent years, the majority of digital label presses installed are predominately using dry toner (Xeikon) or liquid toner (HP Indigo) printing technologies…

For instance, in the Xeikon toner-based digital label printing process a latent image of one of the colour separations is created on a sensitive drum, this image is then developed for printing with the dry powder or liquid toner before being transferred to the label substrate as a printed image, with each colour being printed in turn. On the other hand, HP Indigo printing involves each image being transferred to a rubber blanket where the liquid ink becomes tacky. In this process, the reel-fed approach means each colour is added to the hot blanket in turn and the finished image is transferred to the substrate complete. The sheet-fed approach prints each colour from the blanket to the substrate individually. Both of these printing techniques are therefore using digital offset presses.

What are the benefits of digital printing technologies?

With technical innovations and shift in market demands, digital print, particularly Inkjet has experienced surges in demand the recent years. According to Smithers, this trend is expected to continue through to 2024, pushing digital prints share to 21.1%. Digital printing offers a variety of benefits including:

• High quality – Each print will be of high quality and identical.
• Cost-effective & suited to smaller print runs – As printing plates aren’t required, this is perceived to be a lower cost to set-up a single print run.
• Offers customisation – Benefit from variable data printing (VDP) that enables the customisation of images, text, and graphics on each printed piece of their content.
• Speed – this form of printing presents benefits from higher speed and quality of output.

Labels perfectly suited to digital printing technologies

At Smith & McLaurin we offer a high-quality range of HP, Xeikon and Inkjet certified digital printable label, ticket, and tag materials which have been approved by our extensive digital-ready customer base. Our materials are also available with a proprietary digital top-coating which offers exceptional print results when run on HP Indigo WS 4000 and 6000 series.

If you are interested in discussing your requirements in more detail, you can speak to our friendly team about our AdaptDigi range of materials by calling 01505 707700 or emailing us via info@smcl.co.uk