Discussion on the difference between diluent and white ink

1. Single gravure printing to offset printing and combination printing development

Offset printing has always occupied an absolute dominant position in the field of publishing and commercial printing. In particular, high-end print albums can only be completed with offset printing. This is because the offset press has developed to today, and the technology has been very mature, and it has advantages that other printing methods cannot match in the reproduction of image details. Compared with gravure printing, offset printing plate has a short cycle, low cost of the significant characteristics, in the current cigarette factory frequently change the design of cigarette packs, constantly introduce new products, and the sales of new products is not large, the offset press shows a higher flexibility, which is the main reason for the increasing proportion of offset printing in cigarette packs in recent years.

Especially in the printing field in China, offset printing has been very popular, in a variety of printing methods accounted for a large proportion, is the most important printing method in the field of publishing and packaging printing in China, therefore, in China, the installed capacity of the offset press is large, with excellent hardware environment and software conditions. Offset press six international suppliers Heidelberg [topics, products, encyclopedia], Manroland, Gao Bao, Komori, Mitsubishi, Akiyama, in recent years in China's sales are rising, the introduction of sheet offset press for most of the packaging printing. Although many large and medium-sized cigarette pack printing enterprises have purchased web gravure printing machines or flexo printing machines, but without exception, offset printing as one of the main business, or for printing small and medium-sized batch cigarette pack products, or for printing packaging products in other sectors of society (such as cigarette boxes, cosmetics boxes, medicine boxes, etc.).

However, in recent years, the competition in the tobacco industry has intensified, and the design of cigarette packs has continued to improve the level of the situation, a single offset printing has been unable to meet the requirements of beautiful cigarette packs, so the technology of offset printing, gravure, screen, flexographic and other combination printing cigarette packs has quietly risen, and has become popular overnight. The result of combined printing has pushed the grade of cigarette packs to an unprecedented level, and at the same time, the characteristics of several printing methods have been fully played, drawing on each other's strengths and weaknesses. Use offset printing to print screen images and gradient patterns, using the advantages of gravure ink layer thick, ink color stability, printing large areas of field and spot color, gold and silver, pearl color and a variety of imitation metal etching ink. If you need special finishing effects, you can also use screen printing processes, such as frosting, ice, crystal, wrinkles, etc. Therefore, the combination of offset printing, gravure printing and screen printing has brought unprecedented strong artistic visual effects to the cigarette box. Coupled with post-processing technology: sweep gold, UV local glazing, gold stamping, convex, etc., but also make the cigarette bag icing on the cake, beautiful, breathtaking.

2. The materials used are becoming more sophisticated

Since the four or five types of cigarettes are not profitable, how to bring a second class of cigarettes to the market, break out the brand, and open up sales is the dream of each cigarette factory in recent years. As the soft bag "China" is the number one representative of domestic high-grade cigarettes, its typical Chinese cigarette elegant packaging design has become the object of imitation of cigarette factories, resulting in cigarette factories in the launch of their own high-grade cigarettes, most of the use of flexible packaging design, the material used almost without exception are laser holographic aluminum foil paper, the price of this paper is undoubtedly the highest in all paper. The outer packaging is so exquisite, the interior is not backward, and many of the hydropine paper used in these cigarettes have adopted the bronzing process. These have made packaging and printing costs unprecedented increase. Of course, the price of these cigarettes is not cheap, are 20-80 yuan/box, or even higher.

3. More and more patterns of processing after cigarette box

In addition to the flexible packaging printing process has become more and more complex, and the materials are more and more exquisite, the post-processing process is not willing to be lonely, more and more patterns, and the operation is more and more complex.

①. Sweep gold

A process between hot stamping and gold printing, which is characterized by fast speed, low cost, and ideal results can be obtained regardless of the thickness and area of the text. Gold powder color is also a variety of, such as gold, silver, copper, green, brown, lemon, peacock blue, etc., also has different granularity, showing different visual effects. In foreign countries, there is also a popular imitation diamond effect of gold powder, this gold powder has four particle sizes, 10 colors, can make the overall picture under the irradiation of light presented a group of diamond patterns, reflecting the unique effect of colorful light. Representing cigarette pack: red 'Huangshan'.

②. Holographic hot stamping

Laser hologram is based on the principle of laser interference, using the method of spatial frequency coding. Because the laser hologram color is bright, the level is obvious, the image is vivid, the optical transformation effect is changeable, the information and technology content is high, so it began to be used in the field of anti-counterfeiting in the 1980s. The latest OVD technology is clearly different from the widely used HOLOGRAM hologram, some holograms already have machine recognition function. The mechanism of holographic hot stamping is to melt the hot melt adhesive layer and the separation layer on the holographic hot stamping material by heating the hot stamping die head on the hot stamping equipment. Under a certain pressure, the holographic grating fringe of the information layer of the hot stamping material is separated from the PET substrate, so that the aluminum foil information layer and the hot stamping surface are bonded and integrated to achieve a perfect combination.

There are three types of hologram hot stamping: A. ordinary version of hologram hot; B. Special version of the hologram hot; C. Special version hologram positioning hot. Among them, the third special version of hologram positioning has appeared frequently on high-grade cigarette packs in the past two years. It refers to the hologram of a specific part of the holographic anti-counterfeiting hot stamping electrochemical aluminum on the hot stamping equipment through photoelectric recognition to accurately print the specific position of the cigarette pack. Hologram positioning hot technology is very difficult, not only requires the printing plant to be equipped with high-performance, high-precision special positioning hot stamping equipment, but also requires high-quality special positioning hot stamping electrochemical aluminum, the production process must also be strictly controlled in order to produce qualified cigarette pack products. Due to the high anti-counterfeiting performance of the positioning hot stamping logo, it is used in banknotes and important documents and other occasions. On behalf of cigarette case: good product "Yunyan", "Hibiscus king".

③. Soft paper embossing, positioning hot

Due to the popularity of high-end cigarettes in the form of flexible packaging, the gorgeous post-processing technology that was originally mature on white cardboard has also been transferred to soft paper. Yunnan Qiaotong Packaging and Printing Co., Ltd. first tried in this regard, and achieved great success. This process will be hot stamping, pressing convex in one process to complete, the product has the characteristics of full gold stamping, fine graphics, beautiful, no pressing convex skew. However, this process technology is difficult, and the precision requirements of the hot plate, holographic film, and hot printing machine are particularly high, and the operation indicators should be very strict. Because of this, it is difficult to be imitated, and the degree of anti-counterfeiting is high, representing the cigarette box: "blessing" and "Red Panda".

④. First hot printing process

In order to highlight the specific patterns and logos on the cigarette pack, in recent years, some printing plants have introduced a new process of first hot printing electrochemical aluminum, and then printing patterns on the electrochemical aluminum, which makes the theme of the cigarette pack more vivid and lively. The key to this process is that the hot stamping of electrolytic aluminum must be firm, and the electrolytic aluminum must not be pulled down by the printing ink at the time of printing. This will not only affect the quality of the cigarette pack, but also pull down the electrolytic aluminum will soon accumulate on the blanket, light cause image dot loss, heavy cause local image can not be printed, with the operation of the machine, electrolytic aluminum powder will also be transferred to the ink roll system, accelerate the wear of the ink roll. Therefore, this process should be based on the characteristics of the printing paper, select the appropriate electrochemical aluminum, to ensure that the electrochemical aluminum can be firmly attached to the surface of the paper.

5. Micro embossing process

This process in the aluminum foil graphic part of the micro-press plate pressed on a variety of fine lines needed, the obtained product has a hot printing, embossing effect, the metal texture is very strong.