Digital Printing Vs Offset Printing – What is the difference?

Digital Printing

Digital Printing used to be called ‘copying’, but that term is now outdated. Today, instead of copying a hard original copy, the vast majority of digital printing is output directly from electronic files.
Digital printing is the quickest way to produce short runs, especially when there are a many originals. The quality level of digital printing is now extremely close to offset printing. Although digital printing works well on most stocks today, there are still some papers and jobs where offset printing works better. There are also some stocks and jobs where digital printing will perform as well as, or better than, offset printing.

The benefits of digital printing:

• Faster turnaround time
• Each print is identical. You risk fewer odd variations caused by imbalances in water and ink.
• Cheaper for low volume jobs. The price per unit drops for offset printing, so at some point they criss-cross.
• Changing information within a single print job. For example, say you were printing out postcards advertising a concert. You could dactually change the dates and locations for part of the batch to create two sets of cards for two shows.

The drawbacks of digital printing:

• Fewer options in materials you can print on
• Less color fidelity is possible with digital printing because digital jobs use standard inks that cannot exactly match all colors. Offset jobs use specially mixed inks, which will always be a closer match. Digital is improving and getting closer with blended inks, but those inks still do not match as well as a custom mix.
• Higher cost for large-volume jobs
• Slightly lower quality, sharpness and crispness

Offset printing

Offset printing, also called lithography, is the most common kind of printing for high volume commercial jobs. Ever seen videos of newspapers running through big rolls? That’s offset printing.

Here’s how it works: First, the printer burns the design onto metal plates—one for each color. Typically, four colors are used (cyan, magenta, yellow and black (key), abbreviated CMYK), but offset printing also allows for custom ink colors (most notably Pantone colors) to be used instead.

Next, the design is transferred from the plates onto rubber rolls. The different colors of ink are spread onto the rubber and then the paper is run between them. The paper goes through all of the rolls, layering on the color, to get the final image.

The benefits of offset printing

• Superior image quality that is reliable. Count on offset printing for clean, distinct type and images without streaks or spots
• Better color fidelity, which refers to both the accuracy of the colors and their balance in the design. Because offset printing can mix custom color inks for each job, it’s naturally going to get the colors spot-on.
• Works equally well on almost any kind of material.
• For large volume jobs, you get more for your money. It costs a lot to start an offset job. You have to invest money into creating the plates, which takes time. However, once you’ve invested it, all of the materials are ready to go, and you’ll actually spend less on big offset jobs than a digital print, which is about same per piece no matter how big the job gets.

The drawbacks of offset printing

• High cost of low-volume jobs
• Longer timetable since plates need to be created
• Worse fallout in case there’s an error. If you don’t catch a typo on a plate and ruin a batch it’s harder to fix and the process starts all over again

Is offset printing better than digital printing?

It’s a question many have asked before, and the answer is not as clear and straight-forward as you might think. The answer, of course, is “yes and no.” Let’s explore the differences between offset printing and digital printing to see which is king when it comes to printing your marketing materials. Offset printing has been around for more than a century, and for decades it was the best way to print just about everything commercial: newspapers, magazines, booklets, advertisements, postcards, brochures and more. Generally speaking, offset printing works by transferring ink from a plate to a rubber sheet, which then rolls the ink onto paper, vinyl or other surface. This is in contrast to digital printing, which does not use plates to transfer ink to paper.

Offset vs. digital

In general, offset printing is regarded as being of higher quality; however, digital printing has made strides in respect to quality and two copies of the same design – one via offset printing, the other via digital printing – may appear identical to the untrained eye. Offset printing presses also allow you to print larger sheets and can print many pieces quicker than digital printing presses – again, generally speaking. Outside of those relatively minor differences, the actual finished product associated with offset printing versus digital printing are remarkably similar. The difference, as it turns out, is rooted more deeply in price and budget than anything else; and even these numbers are contingent on your business needs.