Digital VS Offset Printing - What You Need to Know

Offset printing (lithography) is the most common type of printing used for high volume commercial printing. This method uses plates (usually aluminum) that are created from the original digital artwork. These plates then transfer the image from the plate on to a rubber “blanket” and then on to paper. 

In full colour printing, there are 4 plates; cyan, magenta, yellow and black (CMYK). Spot printing is done via the same method as full colour printing but instead uses Pantone inks and can use as little as one plate - this would be called, one colour print. The term offset is used because the ink is not transferred directly onto the paper but instead offset to the blanket first. 

Once set up, offset presses run very efficiently and as such are the best choice when larger high quality print is required, providing accurate color reproduction, and crisp, clean professional looking printing. Offset printing also produces more consistent colour reproduction than digital printing.

Digital printing has made large strides in capability, quality and scope of production available over the last decade and has a defined place in the printing industry. Due to the low set up costs involved in digital print production, short runs are where it holds its power. 

However, there is no economy of scale in digital printing as each print is significantly more expensive than a singular piece printed on an offset press (excluding setup costs). Due to this, digital printing has a maximum upper threshold of economical runs that tops at around 250-500 (generally). 

This threshold is determined by the size of the print job and the maximum sheet size of the digital printer.