Commercial printing involves prepress planning, production, selection of printing techniques, and press runs. The process includes creative and technical stages, with decisions made on images, text, and placement. Prepress production transfers artwork to printing plates, and printers plan the technique needed. The bindery stage involves cutting, ordering, and packing prints for delivery. Offset printing is the most common technique, while gravure and print engraving are used for specific projects.
The commercial printing process involves several stages, such as prepress planning, prepress production, selection of specific printing techniques, and the actual production activities known in the printing industry as press runs. Commercial printing has several options that are appropriate for certain projects. The most common technique in the commercial printing process is called offset printing and requires the use of specialized printing equipment to transfer a finished layout onto paper.
Completing the commercial printing process involves both creative and technical stages. The printing business typically involves the creation of magazines, newspapers, business cards and many other types of materials. Each of these projects begins with decisions about which images or graphics to add, the format of written text, and the placement of each element on each page. This first stage of the printing process typically involves the work of graphic designers, writers and editors who put the project together starting with sketches and ending with finished artwork to be sent to the presses.
The technical phase of the commercial printing process begins with prepress production, where the initial artwork is transferred to the printing plates. Depending on the project, prepress often requires converting digital files to film negatives before they can be rendered with plates. This printing technology works similar to photo processing. A ray of light passed through a negative and exposed to the printing plates activates an ink transfer process that renders the artwork onto the printing plates.
Once prepress production is finished, commercial printers plan the exact technique needed to print each project. This phase of the commercial printing process is one of the most important because it determines the printing equipment and materials needed, as well as the final costs and time constraints. Offset printing is typically reserved for most standard publications such as newspapers. Another method called gravure is sometimes used for glossy magazines or catalogs, and some types of print engraving are used for high-quality stationery or business cards with raised lettering. Each of these printing methods involves equipment designed to achieve the same results as hand letterpress printing, only on a faster and larger scale.
A final stage of the commercial printing process is normally called the bindery stage. His steps involve cutting the finished prints to the appropriate size, placing the pages in the correct order, and packing the finished products for delivery to the customer. Completed print projects are then ready to be shipped and customers invoiced for finished orders.
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