Special inks inject life color into prints

The types of inks will continue to change. It will be difficult for them to fill the lifeblood of printed materials. An unobtrusive white paperboard, under the reflection of a UV lamp, a dazzling array of fluorescent patterns appeared, and the viewers were all excited. A recipe filled with delicious food was appetizing. If scented inks are added, it is even more unstoppable. It is not hard to imagine that if the inks are all the same, the extraordinary charm of the print will not vanish and it will probably disappear by more than half.

Fluorescent ink release invisible color

In the special printing effect suits, a variety of impressions were exquisitely printed, and the printed sheets with the same difficulty were mixed with a plain white card. The screen was blank, and the “unique” place easily attracted people's attention.

A closer look at the production instructions for the printed sheets has finally been clearly answered. White card paper with fluorescent anti-counterfeit ink printed on the pattern, to be exposed to ultraviolet light, can be clearly displayed. Taking the printed sheets under UV light, colorful fluorescent yellow and fluorescent orange patterns live in front of the eyes and the eye-catching effect is amazing.

The special ink for the printing of this batch of printings was sponsored by Chuangyi Co., Ltd., which specializes in printing materials and environmentally friendly water-based varnish. Xie Zhilun, sales manager, said at the introduction: "Fluorescent security ink, Hong Kong called "Invisible Ink", in China is called "colorless fluorescent ink", because the wavelength of ultraviolet light and fluorescent pattern is different, when it is irradiated It will produce fluorescent colors."

The Fluorescent Ink sold by Chuangyi is mainly purchased from foreign countries and made of inks made of several kinds of raw materials, and then processed by itself. There are several colors for customers to choose from, such as Hong Kong commonly known as invisible yellow, invisible blue, invisible Red and invisible orange. Among them, Invisible Orange is the latest exclusive product developed by Chuangyi and is unique in the market. However, Mr. Xie said, "The development of invisible ink has reached the limit. What we can do now is that we can no longer make any breakthroughs."

The printing of fluorescent inks is not difficult, and generally the printing press can be successfully completed. However, it must be noted that since the ink is transparent, only a little color, it must be thoroughly washed before printing, to prevent the printed pattern of other colored ink, affecting the overall effect. In addition, in order to prevent the original color of the fluorescent ink from appearing on the printed sheet and affecting the appearance, Mr. Xie suggested that the user should print a layer of ordinary colored ink on the bottom of the ink before printing the ink. "For example, if you first print a layer of yellow net before printing fluorescent yellow, you will not have the above problem."

Talking about the anti-counterfeit use of fluorescent inks, he pointed out: "As early as ten to twenty years ago, invisible inks still had a great deal of anti-counterfeiting use, but then the country gradually opened up and it has begun to be able to produce such special inks. Other countries, such as The United States, Canada, and Europe also have production supplies. As inks become more and more popular, their anti-counterfeiting effectiveness has gradually been weakened. It is no longer possible to achieve 100% security at the moment. He gave examples: "General products such as medicine Or other less valuable products will also use fluorescent ink to receive anti-counterfeiting effect, as for some of the more expensive products such as cigarettes, wine, cosmetics packaging, in addition to stealth ink logo, will also use multiple anti-counterfeiting measures, such as laser film, Three-dimensional anti-counterfeiting labels, special printing effects, etc. Another example is the Hong Kong banknotes that everyone is familiar with. The color of the invisible inks has also been changed from the previous one to adding more than three fluorescent fibers."

Not to mention I do not know, originally created in the sale of anti-counterfeiting ink, in order to prevent unscrupulous buyers from being used for illegal purposes, must follow a very rigorous set of procedures. "When we import ink from foreign countries, foreign manufacturers will ask us to list the data on the commercial registration, anti-counterfeiting ink use, and type of printing products of the customer who purchased the ink. The purpose is to prevent the ink from flowing to the wrong printers who have printed the fake goods. The credibility of the goods manufacturers, but in the past decade or so, China has opened up to a certain degree of understanding of the technology used to produce security printing inks. If this is not done, then there is no way to predict. Because of this, no manufacturer will rely solely on fluorescent ink security."

Pearl ink offers alternatives

In addition to fluorescent inks, Chuangyi also produces pearl inks with high cost, anti-counterfeit and printing special effects, and is divided into three categories according to the use, including: Ke-style pearls, water-based pearls and silk screen pearls. When Mr. Xie explained the difference between the three, he pointed out: "Keishi pearl ink can be used in offset printing machines, but the printed pearls are not strong enough; water-based pearls can be used in glazing machines to dye any paper into pearl cards, breaking the In the past, only a few ready-made pearls cards were available for consumers to choose from, but the best of them was screen silk pearl ink, because silk screen printing inks are thicker than offset and glazing machines."

Do not think silk screen pearl ink is good because of printing, the price will be the highest of the three. Mr. Xie said that the most expensive is the Ke-style pearl ink, which is several times higher than the screen-printing ink. "Of course, you can do this kind of ink very cheaply, but the effect will be very far, and there will be great difficulties in printing. When we modulate the ink, we will use the higher quality pearl powder from the United States so that we can cooperate with offset printing. The requirements for printing ink are thin." Pearl inks are available in a variety of colors, including pearl white, pearl blue and more. However, because there are not many customer requirements, apart from pearl white, Chuangye currently produces very little pearl ink of other colors.

Using different types of paper to print pearl ink, the results may be very different. "For example, printing with a book or paperboard may have a strong effect. One type of printing may be almost the same as that of no printing." To achieve outstanding results, Mr. Xie suggested that the user select a darker paper to express the pearl. The remarkable effect of ink. He added: “In addition to the printing effects of silk screen printing and offset printing, printing pearl inks also have flexographic and copper plate printing effects. For example, printed wallpaper is a type of copper plate printing. The printed texture is heavy, the thickness is high, and the effect is excellent, but We still can't imitate it, and we can only use screen printing to simulate 80% to 90%."

Aromatherapy with unique features

Careful attention is paid to the printed products such as children's books on the market, and it is not difficult to find traces of fragrance inks and temperature sensitive inks. They have the function of wiping out and exuding aromas and discoloration when exposed to heat, and can be of great interest to people, especially children. . These two special inks also have agents. “For flavor inks, for the time being we offer four flavors, including lavender, roses, strawberries, etc.” 印 A special printed sheet with a sturdy pear print is oozing. Aroma of strawberries. "In general, if you don't rub it often, don't let the sun shine directly, ink's The fragrance can last for one to two years. Mr. Xie stated that customers generally apply this ink to recipes. In the past, foreign manufacturers also provided different flavors. However, due to the decrease in customer purchases in the later period, and the purchase of one kilogram of scented ink can be applied for a long time. Based on cost considerations, the choice of ink scent is gradually reduced.

As for thermal inks that are discolored by heat, they are mainly used in cigarette packs and medicines. Similarly, they have a high degree of anti-counterfeiting effect ten years ago. As the ink becomes transparent upon exposure to heat, when printed on a Kodak machine, the color of the printed ink will disappear. "Printers can use refrigerants to reproduce colors and observe whether the printed colors are desirable." However, as with fragrance inks, since inks require a minimum of one to two kilograms of ink, and this capacity ink has a long application time, unless the customer Special requests will be made, and will be purchased in large quantities at one time. Otherwise, Chuangyi will not make special orders, and it will rarely sell to customers on weekdays.

Spot inks meet Hong Kong demand

The main business of Chuangyi is spot ink production and production. They offer Pantone spot color inks in two categories. One is a cheap Korean ink, and the other is a US ink with a higher density of 10 to 20 and a relatively high price. Mr. Xie explained: "If the density of ink is high, even if printing is a bit thin, we can meet the requirements of color, and there will be no crisis of inconsistent colors. Take the US spot color ink as an example, even if it is mixed with transparent ink, varnish, etc. It will not dilute the original color of the ink, but ink with a low concentration will have this drawback.The printer may try to increase the amount of ink to solve the problem of misalignment, but this will only lead to a series of problems in the printing press. ."

For the needs of the Hong Kong printing factory, the spot color ink formulated by Chuangyi completely follows Pantone's color and is not inferior to silk. "There are a few companies that sell spot inks around the world, but it is not easy to find a set that meets the requirements of Hong Kong printing companies."

One of the spot color inks produced by Chuanghan is a film ink designed for film printing. "Offset inks are very difficult to print on film. They can scratch, fail to dry, and can easily come off. However, this special ink eliminates these difficulties. However, it does not apply to all films, such as printed PVC and PET. No problem, but materials such as PP and PE will need to be tested."

Printing UV inks is quite difficult for most printers. "Ink-printing inks are dried by infrared rays, dried by air, etc. However, UV inks are used to dry inks. When printed, they require completely different technologies than general printing. Some printing masters have been in business for more than 30 years. In addition, some UVs also surrendered in real time, and some of them were even more unsuccessful during the printing years, and they simply did not print. Instead, they used ordinary ink to print films. The printing plant also hopes to try to modify the printing press UV, but it is also unsuccessful. There are also printers that have printed UV inks on the market. However, there are also difficulties in printing. Basically, I have been in the market for so long and I have never encountered an example where a newly purchased UV printer can successfully print on the ink. The general problem they face is that the ink is difficult to dry. In theory, the ink will dry as soon as it is illuminated, but in reality it is not so simple. The problem involves the entire printing technology and takes a long time to explain. Therefore, we sell inks to customers and provide after-sales services to explain to customers the correct methods of use. In particular, anti-counterfeiting inks require more attention and customers need stronger support.