By: Brad Kartel
Submitted: 2011-10-18 08:45:40 | Word Count: 626
When you do your offset printing, you will be faced with the question of using heatset printing or not. Heatset web printing is a special process of drying inks as opposed to coldest printing. In this article we will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of both processes so that you can decide for yourself if you should indeed go for heatset printing or not. Just go through the list below and discover.
1. Heatset and coldest explained – Let us first get into the technicalities of heatset and coldest printing. Below are the key details you should know.
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a. Now, coldest printing is basically the process of drying inks via the "cold" air. Though technically, it is just the natural air temperature that is in the offset printing process. This is similar to what most printers use in newspaper print media. The just let the inks dry in the ambient air, where the moisture within the inks evaporate.
b. Heatset printing on the other hand does a one up and uses a heatset oven. This means that after ink application, the prints are sent to the heatset oven for the inks to dry. You basically force the drying in this way. Many professional magazine prints use this process.
2. Advantages of heatset printing – Here are the key advantages of heatset printing.
a. Faster Drying – The offset printing process is a lot faster if you use heatset web printing. This is because you basically force the ink to dry.
b. Higher quality prints – Since the prints actually dry completely, you won't expect any blotting, misprints or misalignments to appear when you use heatset printing. Everything will be set and printed precisely according to your main design.
c. More smoother materials – Heatset printing allows one to lock in the inks even with the pesky sooth and glossy paper materials that people want to print on these days. So if you are aiming for glossy type prints such as in magazines and catalogs, you will want to use heatset printing.
3. Advantages of coldest printing – Now, here are the key advantages of coldset printing.
a. Cheaper- Yes! You heard that right. coldset printing is a lot cheaper than heatset printing. Why? Well because it does not need extra energy and effort to of course dry the inks. The inks are just allowed to dry using ambient cold air.
b. More practical – For those printing simple newsletters and flyers with little frills and just direct marketing messages, coldest printing is a lot better. Not only is it cheap of course but it also sets you to use more practical material that is perfect for highly economical marketing prints. If you are trying to manage your printing costs, then coldset printing is the way to go.
4. Disadvantages of heatset printing – There is only one real disadvantage of heatset printing. That is its cost. As the items earlier pointed out, as coldset printing is cheap, heatset printing comes at a price. You will need to reserve extra resources to make sure that you can afford heatset printing through the offset printing process.
5. Disadvantages of coldest printing – The singular disadvantage of coldset printing is its quality. If your hands have gotten smudged with ink because of the newspaper, then you will know exactly what I am talking about. Coldset printing sometimes does not lock in the inks totally, leading to easy transfers and deterioration.
Great! So should you go heatset or not? Read through the arguments above and discover exactly what you want to do. Good luck!
Author Resource:-
Brad Kartel is a marketing executive whose passion is helping business owners build their campaign through heatset web printing of marketing materials. Learn more about heatset printing.
