Printing is now digital, like every other thing in our life. We passed the Gutenberg days in printing long ago and acknowledged the recent revolution more and more. These days we have switched to digital printing from traditional printing or lithography. However, have you ever given a thought about the advantages of digital printing?
Digital printing is also called direct-to-garment printing or on-demand printing. It is a printing method where digital images come from a desktop or any other digital device and printed directly onto the material surface like apparel, acrylic, or paper. Whereas in traditional printing or offset printing methods, metal plates are used to transfer the images by rolling ink onto the material surface. Thus, digital printing is more simple and consumes a lower amount of time.
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These days digital printing has increased demand depending on customer requirements, high-mix, limitation of time, and low-volume orders. Huge and global companies like Print Britannia have embraced digital printing and are driving people towards it day by day. In this article, I am describing some of the advantages of digital printing, and you will agree that it is everything you need for your business or day-to-day life.
Advantages of Digital Printing
From reduced cost to faster production, here are some major benefits that digital printing will bring to you when you want something printed.
Reduces the cost
One of the major advantages that digital printing can give you is reduced cost. Offset printing or lithography is more expensive, and only bigger companies can afford it. The reason behind this is offset printing has more setup fees which include costly metal plates. And in this way, small businesses have to pay a considerable amount of money for small orders.
In contrast, digital printing has zero setup fees. For low-volume printing orders, digital printing is much more cost-effective than the traditional printing method. Marketing materials like business cards, brochures, postcards, or flyers are printed by digital printing.
Ensures Premium quality
Digital printing has surpassed offset printing in quality also. Although offset printing ruled this ground for a very long time. For instance, you wouldn’t see any difference if two identical business cards are brought to you printed using these two printing methods.
The colors come out vibrant. Print quality remains consistent from first to last, controlling the shades and hues and keeping the lines sharper. Texture print, glossy finish, or embossed effects is possible in digital printing by using UV inkjet printers. Hence it adds high value to the materials you want to print.
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Fast processing
The digital printing method is very quick. With the advanced color matching option, the processing is very fast as there is no time needed to set up the plates or unnecessary details. As there is no use of photo chemicals and film plates, the images and designs get printed very fast on the materials and keep the process cleaner.
More options to choose
You can choose almost any material to be printed by digital printing. Traditional printing only allows cards or papers. But with the digital printing method, you have the options like fabric, plastic, wood, and even ceramics. You only need the right equipment to print with.
You can also work with highly delicate fabrics or other materials easily and quickly, while it would take ages for a traditional printing method to print on. Digital printing is more advantageous when it comes to inks. It can print with any color or even white ink. So now you only need your creativity to flourish!
Quick proof cycle
Digital printing makes proofing easier and quicker. Hence, the proof cycle becomes faster as a whole.
Prototyping is possible
From small start-up to large established businesses, the one big issue is that they place small orders initially. These are called prototype orders. Traditional printing costs more time and money for these small prototype orders. On the other hand, digital printing allows the smallest orders even if you want to print a single T-shirt.
Paperless archiving
For storing old print samples, you don’t need to pile them up in a room anymore. Simply find a room on the cloud to archive them.
Print whenever you need
Printing was not flexible in the early days. It would take so much time to complete one single order. And if you needed to place an instant order, the printing companies couldn’t make that immediately. But now, with digital printing, you can print whenever or whatever you need. This makes digital printing more flexible.
Eco friendly
As there is no plating process and the inkjet method decreases ink waste, the overall carbon consumption is reduced. Therefore, digital printing contributes to a green environment.
Versatility
Digital printing is versatile enough. It can provide a large media range and print on thousands of certified substrates. The substrate also includes metallics, synthetics, and darks.
When do you need Digital printing?
Digital printing is a new standard for the industry. Though the print quality of digital printing doesn’t differ from offset printing that much, you still need to consider some grounds while choosing digital printing.
- When you have a small job or a small budget, you need to go for digital printing. Like if you want to print less than 100 copies, then go for digital printing.
- When you expect your materials to be customized to fit your needs, keep them up-to-date, choose digital printing.
- When you want to print images on your materials, choose digital printing. Digital printing allows you clearer and good quality image prints with high resolution.
- When you have a shorter period, avoid traditional printing and embrace digital.
Final Verdict
With many advantages, digital printing can make a small business grow in a shorter period. Digital printers always try to keep themselves updated with the new technology. For a startup business, this method has always brought tremendous opportunities. However, by reading this article, I hope you have already come to know the advantages of digital printing and can utilize it in your life.