Why Print Quality Matters
At Avery WePrint, we’re passionate about the quality of our printing. We know that print quality has a big impact on the overall impression of your finished product, because it enhances the design and helps make it longer lasting.
The Avery group produces around 8 million digitally printed A4 sheets per month! So whether you’re customizing stickers, labels, business cards, cards, ring binders, laptop skins, CDs/DVDs or Posters, our specialists have developed high quality printing techniques for a wide range of different materials.
We asked the Avery WePrint specialists for a behind-the-scenes look at the printing processes. They explained how they carefully manage every step and why it’s different to using a printer at home.
What are the key stages in processing an Avery
WePrint order for print?
First, every
customer’s design is converted into a high quality, print-ready PDF. The PDF is
made compatible with the four colours used for print: cyan (blue), magenta
(red), yellow and black, known in the trade as ‘CMYK’.
Most items are
printed on large sheets, so your design is applied to fit the layout of the
sheet based on size and orientation.
If you’ve selected
a clear or brown kraft paper label material, a white layer will be added
underneath your design. This is because
your design will be printed over a layer of white ink to ensure that your
colours and images stand out.
If you order double-sided business cards or postcards, the software that sets up the sheets for printing ensures that both sides will appear the same way up.
What type of printing machines does Avery WePrint use and how
fast are they?
We use five digital photo-quality printers. Labels and cards are printed on a seven-colour digital printer which can produce 160 full colour pages per minute, or 1.2 metres per second! This is the digital printer that prints white under the design. And this particular printer is also carbon neutral!
What are the main advantages of the printing
processes and machines that Avery WePrint uses?
We print at a very
high resolution because this shows designs to the best effect. For example, it
makes colour gradients smoother and skin tones more realistic.
Printing is a
matter of applying millions of tiny dots of coloured ink, according to the
design. Print resolution is always expressed in dots-per-inch (DPI) and a
higher number of dots-per-inch means a higher resolution and therefore better
quality.
You may know that print quality photos need a resolution of least 300 dots per inch (DPI). At Avery WePrint, we’re printing at 2,438 DPI!
How does Avery WePrint compare to home printing?
While printing at
home or in the office can be convenient, and works well for some things, home
printers simply cannot provide the range of possibilities and finishes that
professional print machines can.
For example, colour
definition is likely to be better on a professional machine and colours of the
finished product are likely to be a better match to your original artwork.
What’s more, white under-printing is not possible on home machines, and this
makes a big difference to colour definition when printing on clear or Brown
Kraft Paper labels, which are darker.
It’s worth bearing
in mind that Avery WePrint machines can add a varnish to provide a gloss or shiny
finish. This enhances the colour definition and adds a protective layer to help
protect your printed items from UV light degradation, as well as everyday scuffs and
scrapes. This is particularly useful if you’re labeling products for sale.
And if you need to
print a large-size poster, you might not be able to go above A4 or A3 on a home
printer. Printing directly onto CD, DVD and Blu-ray discs is another type of
printing that cannot be done at home.
Ring binders
require professional machines, as these are printed on digital wide-format
printers. They also have a protective laminate added to ensure the print quality
lasts, and to give them an extra layer to protect them from scrapes and knocks.
If you have any more questions, please contact us by email: [email protected]