The main steps of printing a mechanism include design, plate making, and printing
Design phase
Designers need to use professional design software, such as Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop, to design. They need to determine the color, pattern, and typography of the print. Once the design is complete, the negative can be made in three ways:
Sulfuric acid paper + laser printing: suitable for monochrome printing small machines, not suitable for complex patterns.
Laser phototypesetting machine + film film: print the design content onto the film material, and then make the bottom plate.
CTP Direct Plate Making: Use a large printer to eliminate cumbersome steps and directly make negatives
Plate-making process
Plate making is one of the key steps of color printing. There are two ways to make plates:
Film plate making: The designed pattern is output to the film, and then the film is put into the printing press for printing.
CTP plate making: directly output the designed pattern to the printing plate, and then put the printing plate into the printing press for printing
Printing link
Printing is the core step of color printing. The printer will print according to the pattern and color on the printing plate. Four-color printing is usually used, i.e., cyan, magenta, yellow, and black, and these four colors can be combined to create a variety of colors and patterns.