What are Printing Plates in Offset Printing?

To understand what printing plates are, the first thing we have to know is what offset printing is. We’re sure that you understand the process of printing, but the specific technique called offset refers to a process where the ink is deposited on a metallic sheet and then it’s moved to the printing surface.

The offset printing technique is actually one of the most important ones because it gave origin to digital printing as we know it today. Thus, the aforementioned metallic sheet used in offset printing actually refers to the “plates”.

Through a photochemical process, these plates are the ones that receive the ink. Once this is done, they are attached to another cylinder where water passes through and transfers the ink to the end product.

Due to this specific procedure, many organizations still use offset printing to this day. One of the many benefits that the use of printing plates is they have a lot more printing accuracy than other printing methods.

At the same time, although the plates can definitely be made of metal like aluminum, there are other (though less accurate) materials available in the market, like rubber or plastic.

Right now, you must be wondering if you have to actually find these plates in order to print what you want. However, this is not the case. The job of finding, installing the plates and making sure they work is completely up to the printing enterprise – what you have to do is set up your digital version of the work you want to print and choose offset printing.

Offset printing is a precise procedure that involves the printing machine as well as the person who controls it, especially when graduating balance between ink and water. If this does not happen, a disaster can occur. Nonetheless, there are many experts that work in enterprises and are happy to do the best job they can in order to print your design effectively.

Now that you understand all this information about offset printing and why it uses printing plates, we are very sure that you are able to choose a printing enterprise that provides you the best options to print your design.

The most important thing you have to remember is that although offset printing is not used as regularly as it was before, it’s still an amazing method to print with high accuracy and it’s especially used as a way to print lithography.