Incredible Shrinking Dot: Today's New Precision Inks Do The Job, 1992 Corrugated Containers Conference Proceedings

George T. Sickinger--When it comes to printing, the average corrugated board manufacturer doesn’t know a dot from a square. That’s because dots have not been a factor in the traditional printing of corrugated materials.

However, this is changing. Dot size and dot gain are issues of increasing significance to corrugated printers as they begin to employ process printing to obtain the high-quality four-color results required for point-of-purchase display materials, eye-catching posters and upgraded packaging -- a market that has grown dramatically for the corrugated industry. Process printing gives them a full spectrum of colors to work with as well as the life-like life reproduction of flesh tones. And dots are at the heart of process printing.

For those who may not be familiar with how process printing works, let me tell you first a little bit about dots. In process printing, the graphic design is broken up into a number of tiny dots that may be applied individually to the surface to be printed. By combining several different colors with these dots, the perception of a specific color is achieved by the eye at normal viewing distance. The dot concept is much more practical than trying to duplicate all the colors of the visible spectrum in a four-to-eight-color- station printing press.

In the past, the dot structure from rubber plate printing was very difficult to produce because of the spread from the compression of the rubber plates. By using harder materials that do not upset the structure of the substrate and controlling more precisely the distance between the printing plate and the substrate, however, it has become feasible to obtain precise flexographic process printing results. Some outstanding flexo process work is now being achieved in the paperboard industry. These accomplishments are the result of dots that are becoming smaller and sharper. They are producing graphics that formerly could be found only in work done by lithographic folding carton and publication printing.