Pre-press packaging preparation at KOLORO is:
Prepress (or Pre-Press) is the most important and time-consuming part of the printing process. To make a soccer analogy, prepress is the team’s goalkeeper. Spectators remember the goals scored by strikers, but the goalkeeper has the most responsible job on the field. Even a small mistake can ruin an entire batch of printed products. That’s why prepress is important – it helps you minimize losses and get into production faster
YOU GET
High-quality printing
Guaranteed color rendering
Perfect layout
Saving your designers time
High-quality printing
Guaranteed color rendering
Perfect layout
Saving your designers time
The cost of prepress layout preparation depends on the following factors
- Overall Layout Size. The larger it is, the higher the prepress cost.
- Number of vector images. Their price goes up along with their number.
- Однотипность. When ordering a line of items, subsequent layouts are made from the sample and will be priced lower.
Pre-press preparation of packaging design: stages
- Graphic and structural design. First, our team starts with the graphic and structural design of the packaging. In case you already have one, start working with it.
- Preparing the electronic layout for printing. Having created an electronic mock-up of the product, we prepare it for printing, having checked and previously agreed the final version with you.
- Trapping and color separation. Trapping is a technique for masking register errors. It consists of thickening the contours of printed elements. Color separation is the division of a color image into multiple monochrome components. It is needed to prepare the image for printing with multiple inks.
- Making a color proof. A color proof is a sample of the final product. It is created to verify that the color separation is correct. It helps to avoid errors and costs in the subsequent stages of prepress image preparation.
- Structural development and layout design. Engage in structural design and engineering using CAD and CAM computer-aided design systems.
- Creating a packaging trial sample. Having approved the layout, we prepare layouts for placing the strips in a sealed sheet format.
- Production of printing plates. A printing plate is a plate that is used to apply an image to the material to be printed.
- Development and manufacture of technical tooling.
Types of printing on packaging
Offset printing
For many years offset printing has been a leader among all existing types of printing. The secret to its success is the relatively low cost per copy for large print runs.
Pre-press offset printing is a time-consuming and costly process. One of its most important steps is error checking and correction. It is necessary to prevent the production of defective products.
The strip down process is also important. This is the correct arrangement of pages of the document with orientation to the specific features of printing and prepress in a particular printing house. Thanks to him, the products appear exactly as they were intended. Strip descent helps to save on paper, which reduces the cost of the product.
Offset printing requires printing plates. They are produced using photographic film or by developing offset plates in a special copying frame.
Flexographic printing
Flexographic printing is particularly popular for printing carton or film packaging and labels.
There are several requirements for preparing printing plates for flexo printing. Among them:
- the need for a negative image;
- the image on the photo plate should be compressed along one of the axes;
- the image must be readable from the emulsion side.
In offset printing, the designer does not have to worry about the paper size and placement of images on the sheet. This is done by hand mounting. However, there is no manual mounting of molds in flexography. Here, exactly what will be printed needs to be prepared for output to the photo plate. I.e.. to print a label, you need to place it on a sheet, design it with scales, cut marks, etc.
You can order prepress flexo printing service from KOLORO. When you choose us, you choose quality.
Screen printing
Screen printing is indispensable when working with uneven surfaces. It differs from others by using a stencil when applying images. It is most often used for printing single demand products with small print runs (mainly for text materials).
For screen printing it is desirable to use vectorized layouts. I.e.. the drawing should consist of shapes or lines rather than a set of dots. When printing a bitmap image, the number of lines per inch does not exceed 45 (whereas in offset printing it reaches up to 175). Also, when colors overlap, you must specify the order of the colors for proper color separation. The lightest shade is usually printed first.
Deep Seal
This method dates back to the 15th century. Right now, gravure printing is developing mainly in the packaging manufacturing market. In this type of printing, ink is fed to the printing cylinder and falls on the corresponding printing recesses.
One of the features of gravure prepress is the difficulty of correcting prepress errors and mistakes on the printing plate.
Decorating glassware
Recently, decorating glassware (often alcohol bottles) has become increasingly popular. It helps to stand out from the competition, make the product original and more valuable. You can order decoration of glass products at KOLORO
Methods of decorating glassware
- Screen printing. Using high-temperature firing, thermal enamel or ceramic paint is applied to the surface of the bottle. This is the kind of printing that is used when creating a gold or platinum bottle decoration.
- UV printing refers to the screen printing method. However, it can be distinguished as a separate species. High-temperature firing is not necessary here, so printing can be done on an already colored surface.
- Satinization. This method involves matting the bottle, which has become very popular when decorating alcoholic beverages.
- Cotting (bottle staining). With this method, you get a unique design that is also much more economical than colored glass.
- Heat shrink labels are a very popular method these days. It allows the label to take the shape of the bottle when exposed to temperature.
- Decoloring consists of transferring an image onto the bottle using a type of transfer picture.
Packaging prepress is the foundation for the future success of a product. Build it together with KOLORO!
