Seven unavoidable errors in the printing industry

For professionals engaged in printing for a long time, some printing errors are objective and impossible to avoid; For customers who receive printed matter and play a decisive role in the acceptance of finished products, these errors are sometimes not fully understood. As a result, after the dispute, the communication between the two sides is very difficult, the customer thinks that the printing plant is unqualified, but looking for excuses and unreasonable sophistry; The printing plant thinks that the customer is unreasonable and the payment credit is problematic.

In this brief introduction to the objective errors in printing. The reason why it is objectively existing is because of the limits of the machinery itself, and these errors are inevitable, rather than due to human factors, such as poor management, improper quality control and other factors. These errors include:

1. Text errors in typesetting:

Typesetting is an important process before printing. To be exact, typesetting is a text arrangement work carried out by designers and producers using corresponding software at the behest and request of customers. Therefore, from the point of view of the printing house, customers are generally required to sign before printing. But sometimes due to the time crunch of the live parts, and based on the level of trust between the two parties, the customer may sometimes completely delegate the right to typesetting confirmation to the printing house. In this case, if something goes wrong, the customer may blame the designer for irresponsibility, such as typos or other typographical errors.

It should be said that the emergence of this error is not caused by the mechanical problems we have mentioned above, but is entirely a problem with process control. Therefore, we generally require that the customer's signature must be confirmed before the production of the film. Through mutual comparison, these errors can be reduced or eliminated to a large extent. But even so, in fact, there may still be some errors in the manuscript confirmed by the customer.

In this regard, we recommend drawing on the practice of some multinational companies, which generally mark "This information is for reference only and the Company is not responsible for any errors in the printed matter" at the back of important printed matter printed in a strict principle, so as to eliminate joint and several liability arising from typographical errors.

2. Film production and proofing error:

After the design and production personnel complete the typesetting and production work, they enter the scheduling process, which is what we usually call the film proofing. Generally speaking, the accuracy of the laser phototypesetter is in the range of 0.01-0.1 mm. At the same time, due to the difference in the film used, it will also lead to a certain error.

The most direct manifestation of this error is that in four films (black, red, yellow, blue), if a film (such as black edition) has a problem and needs to be filled, because the film output is different, the resolution may be different (not in the same batch of film), resulting in dot changes, the filled film may be overprinted with the previous three films. Therefore, when the piece should strive to form once, to minimize the patch. Of course, garbled characters or font changes due to font replacement during the film can be avoided if the relevant personnel are serious and responsible.

After the film (film) is produced, traditional analog proofing requires a set of four films to be used for proofing. In proofing, in order to achieve the accuracy and stability of four-color ink proof color, it is necessary to control and standardize three links, namely equipment, materials and quality standards. On the equipment, it is necessary to adjust the pressure of the proof press, the temperature of the plate and the air cushion blanket to ensure that the proof press is in the best working condition; In terms of materials, the same brand and the same series of inks should be standardized, and the use of four-color inks with different brands will cause the sample to be different from the characteristic files in the scanner, which directly affects the accuracy of color correction.

In addition to standardize the paper, in principle proofing and printing should use the same kind of paper; In terms of quality standards, attention should be paid to the field density value and the printing relative contrast value. If these factors cannot be taken into account when proofing, it will lead to errors in the printed product compared with the proofing. For example, the ink used for printing is different from the ink used for proofing; The paper used for printing is different from the paper used for proofing (such as using different brands of paper, or using different types of paper, such as copperplate, film and specialty paper); When prototyping, one-sided pursuit of minimizing the size of the network, resulting in small white holes in the center of the network. If these deviations occur, it will directly lead to the printed product can not catch up with the proofing. In fact, even if it is the same set of film, if the proofing twice, the hit out of the proof will be different.