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Colours can be enhanced during printing by overprinting a gloss or matte varnish – or a combination of both. For example, a gloss varnish could be added to the photographs in a brochure to bring out the brilliance of the colours. Then the rest of the page could be treated with a matte or dull varnish for an attractive contrast. A varnish will also protect dark-coloured pages from becoming nicked, scratched or marred by fingerprints. Screen printing on the other hand is a mechanical process. This type of printing is obtained by spreading and forcing ink through a stencil, a screen or a mesh of silk fabric. The first step of screen printing involves the stretching of the fabric tightly on the wooden frame. This is followed by stapling the fabric on a wooden frame. The screen frame is hinged to the baseboard. The ink or colour is then spread on the upper side of the screen and brought into contact with the paper placed below the screen on the baseboard. The colour is forced through the pores of the screen with a rubber squeegee, thus creating an image on the paper placed under it. The screen is then raised and the printed piece is removed. The action goes on repeating till the desired number of copies are printed. The images are obtained by depositing ink on paper placed under the frame.
With screen printing, you can print on all types of materials. It is commonly used for printing letterheads, visiting cards, invitation cards, envelopes and similar items. We have printed letterheads on offset printing when we wanted to print large quantities, that is, say in the range of 4000-5000. But people usually print letterheads in small quantities ranging from 100 to 1000 in which case screen printing is a more cost effective option. Similarly, business cards or visiting cards are almost always printed in small quantities with screen printing. It can be considered as a cheap printing method because it can make do without any expensive equipment. The prints can be colourful too. The number of colours is not the limitation. The amount of ink applied in screen printing is far greater than in offset printing which accounts for some of the unusual effects in screen printing.
Each colour printed is considered an impression. The more the number of the colours, the more the impressions and also the cost. Also, for instance in a letterhead, if you want something printed on the top as well as the bottom in the same colour, it will be counted as two impressions thereby catapulting the cost. This is because the two items to be printed are far from each other and will have to be printed separately. This type of printing is suitable under the following circumstances
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