In-depth comparison of gravure and flexographic printing

Compared with flexo printing, gravure printing is generally considered to have high cost and long production cycle, while flexo printing has been greatly improved with the development of plate making, ink and printing machinery technology. Many of the jobs that led to gravure printing went to flexographic printing. Relevant information shows that the current market share of gravure printing is less than 40% in the field of flexible packaging. According to industry analysts, there are two reasons for this phenomenon: First, in the gravure printing process, various expectations of customers often lead to some unnecessary processes, resulting in a certain amount of waste, which obviously increases the cost. The second is that many flexo printing products designed for the first time cost less than the cost. However, does this mean that gravure is inferior to flexo? The following article compares these two printing methods in depth.

From the point of view of production process, whether the gravure process or the flexographic process is used for the printing of the web material, the requirements are almost the same, and there is no difference between the unwinding and winding, the tension control, the drying and the monitoring system. For the same job, the amount of work required for gravure and flexo printing is similar. The difference between the two lies mainly in the different processes used. Gravure printing uses engraving rollers, while flexo printing uses soft and elastic printing plates. In addition, the investment in gravure printing processes is generally 20%-30% higher than flexographic printing.

Flexographic and gravure printing processes have their own advantages. The advantages of flexographic printing include: suitable for short-run printing, or printing of products whose design content often changes; if the original is simple in design, the production cost is relatively low; the space is small and the capital investment is small. Less, less restrictive conditions. The advantages of gravure printing include: high resistance to printing, very suitable for long-lived printing, and repeated printing many times; good consistency of printed images; ability to realize double-sided printing of web materials; continuous prints without connectors; with flexo Compared with products, gravure printing products have stronger visual effects and generally higher quality. Therefore, people generally cannot noticeably notice the progress and development of gravure printing, and in fact, advances in plate making and engraving techniques, and the development of non-film electronic engraving. The development of directions has greatly improved the consistency of gravure prints.

Now, gravure printing technology has gradually emerged from the elusive and difficult to rely on people's constant groping, and it is developing in the direction of predictability and reproducibility. Previously, gravure printing was chemically plated. Due to the poor consistency of the plate cylinder, many waste products were created each time. With the development of laser engraving, automatic plating production lines and the emergence of lightweight rollers, the consistency and ease of use of gravure printing will continue to be improved and improved. There are no strict standards for the quality of printed images, different purposes, different applications, different methods and processes used, and not just the cost of the process. However, there is a common view that the gravure quality is higher than the flexographic printing at the same price, and when the image quality of the two is the same, people generally think that the gravure quality is relatively poor. Product or substandard product.

From the point of view of production cost, although the cost of gravure printing is higher than that of flexographic printing in the first printing, the cost difference between the two will be very high for a living organism that is to be repeatedly printed. Zoom out quickly. If the design of the living body does not change substantially within six months or longer, the cost of gravure printing is still relatively low. For long-lived jobs, the life of a gravure plate cylinder can reach up to 1 million meters, but the flexographic resin plate life is only 1/2 or even shorter. In addition, downtime required for flexographic printing is 2-3 percentage points longer than gravure printing.

From the point of view of the production cycle, gravure printing has formed a set of strict and careful workflow. From the manuscript design to the Cromartine-like, to the final printed matter, the customer generally has to confirm it step by step. This will undoubtedly produce long-term production delays and increase production costs. In contrast, the workflow used for flexographic printing is much simpler and much more straightforward: from the manuscript design to delivery, it is generally not more than four weeks. In addition, the development and application of electronic engraving technology is also a big progress, it can achieve multiple engraving drum, and greatly shorten the plate making cycle.

As can be seen from the above, both flexographic and gravure printing are important printing processes, and they are all in rapid development. Both have their merits. In order to be able to compare these two processes better, it is necessary to develop a quantitative evaluation system for the evaluation of the image quality of the printed matter, and compare the flexographic and gravure prints with uniform standards and parameters.