The lithography process characteristics and types

proceso de litografía

The lithography process is one of the most used techniques since when there are high volumes of production, lithographic printing is your best solution. The lithographic process ensures excellent color and image quality, plus costs drop as quantities increase. It also offers a large number of materials and paper weights which are adapted to the requirements of each end customer.

Characteristics of a current lithography process

  • One of the fundamental advantages of this technique is that the higher the production volume, the lower the cost.
  • Suitable for serial printing, it has the possibility of preparing special colors.
  • Offers a high number of products such as; Personal Stationery, Business, Souvenirs, Outdoor Advertising and labels for clothing.

Lithograph meaning

The term Lithography in its literal meaning is to write in stone according to the Greek. Lithography was invented in 1798 by Alois Senefelder and to this day it has become a widespread and widely used printing process, including artists and printing companies using this system. The lithographic printing process makes use of the impossibility of mixing between fat and water.

General process lithography

In lithographic printing process it consists in that the ink is applied to an image treated with grease on the flat printing surface. Non-image or colorless areas that retain moisture repel lithographic ink. This inked surface is printed, either directly on paper or through a special press such as a rubber cylinder as is the case with commercial printing.

Offset lithography

Going into the detail of the current process, offset lithography, depends on photographic developments, malleable plates of aluminum, polyester, mylar or paper are used instead of stone tablets. Modern lithography plates have a crushed texture and are covered with a photosensitive emulsion. A photographic negative of the desired image is placed in contact with the emulsion and the plate is exposed to ultraviolet light.

After processing, the emulsion shows a reverse of the negative image, which is a duplicate of the original image that would be the positive image. The image on the plate emulsion can also be created by direct laser imaging on a platesetter device. The positive image is the emulsion that remains after the image. The non-image portions of the emulsion have traditionally been removed by means of a chemical process, although in the last period plates have arrived that do not require such processing.