Catalog Printing Methods

We cannot deny the fact that catalog printing is now a soaring industry. Nowadays, catalogs are considered one of the useful tools in advertising and marketing. It can be used to give information to customers and to show pictures of products that can be purchased. In some cases, catalogs will show services that can be offered by certain businesses as well.

You can choose to print your own material catalog or be aided by a professional printing service. It is still best to use a professional printer if you are creating a large catalog with lots of pictures. However, you can still print catalogs at home if you have the right equipments, including computer programs, paper, and a high-quality printer.

Catalog printing is more difficult and lengthy in procedure compared to pamphlet or brochure printing. The reason to this is that it has many pages and each page must be designed to show different products, services, prices and company information. It can be a tedious process thus, it is still best to get hold of a professional printer rather than just experimenting on your own.

Four color printing is mostly used by printing services and commercial printers. This is because this kind of printing generates the most clear, vibrant and crisp color images. Examples of this kind of printing can be seen in magazines such as Time, People and National Geographic.

There are several methods used in catalog printing. The first on is the web press. A web press is an offset press that uses a roll of paper rather than sheets of paper. The use of a roll of paper allows quicker printing. There are two types of web presses the heat-set and cold-set.

A heat-set web press is the standard catalog and magazine printing press. It has a heating unit that dries the printed ink as it exits the press. This press allows high speed printing on coated papers such as gloss. It also produces brilliant, crisp photo reproduction for catalogs. Heat-set web presses are huge, complicated presses that necessitate several people to operate and setup. It is only reasonable to use this type of press for print runs of 10,000 copies or more and in increments of 8 pages, preferably 16. Ninety nine per centum of all mail-order catalogs are printed on this type of press.

Cold-set web press, on the other hand, does not include a heating unit so the printed ink must air dry. This press can only print on uncoated papers which allow the ink to absorb into the paper. Cold-set web press produces a fairly dull, fuzzy photo reproduction for catalogs. This kind of press is smaller and simpler than heat-set web presses, costing less and requiring less setup time. This can be a good press for very small quantity catalog print runs starting at 1,000 copies.

Another method of catalog printing is the sheet-fed press. This press is a customarily low volume press that prints on pre-cut sheets of paper. Because of its more precise printing method a sheet-fed press produces the sharpest printing of these three press types. It can print on a wider variety of paper weights. However, because of its sluggish speed it is the most costly of all the print methods. Sheet-fed press is commonly used for small print runs or job which necessitates the most excellent printing.