Digital printing is a great technology when paired with projects that fit it well. It is environmentally friendly, projects can be turned quickly, and on appropriate projects, you would not see any degradation of quality compared to offset printing.

A good candidate for digital printing is built in process colors (CMYK), with colors that reproduce well as four-color builds. The finished flat size needs to be 12 x 18 inches or smaller, and the ideal digital project requires 5,000 impressions or fewer.

In general, the quantity “sweet spot” for digital printing is about 2,500 sheets. If you are printing more sheets than that, offset printing is more cost-effective.

The greatest advantages of digital printing are less paper wastage and a shorter production timeline. A digital printing press project might use 50 sheets of make-ready, compared to 800 to 1,000 sheets of make-ready for an offset job.

The disadvantage is that you cannot really adjust color very much once you are on press, so what you see in a press proof is what you will get in the print job.

Heavy solids like rich black and many four-color build floods tend to look great, but areas of light tints do not work as well, as they can show banding. And it can be a challenge to match corporate colors exactly. Papers for Indigo presses have been given a special surface treatment at the paper mill. These treated stocks come in uncoated—including 100% post-consumer waste stocks. Gloss, matte or dull coated are also available.

Most printers have a preferred house stock. When you specify the house stock, you not only know it will run well, but you will also enjoy a better price, since the printer would not have to buy full cartons of paper for your project.

When searching for a digital printing company, select a printer with a strong prepress department that will help you determine the best color builds and troubleshoot your files before they go to press.

Love your art before you send it. This means releasing clean files that are approved and correct. Have great color to start with—if an image looks muddy in your file, it will print muddy, too. And be sure to include any bleeds in your files. For best results, especially on type, builds should be built with at least three colors.

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