Basics of printing plates.

Printing processes such as offset lithography use printing plates to transfer an image to paper or other substrates. The plates may be made of metal, plastic, rubber, paper, and other materials. The image is put on the printing plates using photo-mechanical, photo-chemical, or laser engraving processes. The image may be positive or negative. Typically, printing plates are attached to the plate cylinder in the press. Ink is applied to the plate's image area and transferred directly to the paper or to an intermediary cylinder (blanket) and then to the paper. In screen printing, the screen is the equivalent of the printing plate. It can be created manually or photo-chemically and is usually a porous fabric or stainless steel mesh stretched over a frame.

The one-time cost of your printing plate depend on the size of the image we are printing as well as the number of colors we are printing on your bag. A larger image required a larger printing plate. Each color being printed requires its own printing plate to create its portion of your image on the bag. Although the cost of printing plates increases the cost of your first order, it is still well worth it when you see a top quality bag with your company’s brand practically jumping off of the company.

Metal plates are usually more expensive but last longer and have greater accuracy. Paper plates are usually more suitable for shorter runs without close or touching colors that require trapping. Plan your design so that paper plates can be used effectively if you want to save money. Flexible printing means that the image printed on your PP woven bags(also named as PP bags) will always appear in the same position from one item to the next. For example, when you check out at target, the red target logo is in the same place on every bag.

The number of printing plates needed for a job where printing is done on both sides of the sheet of paper is determined not only by the number of colors of ink but also by how the sheets are imposed and fed into the printing press.