Media and communications
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Printing
Printing is the process of making many copies of a document or a picture. Printing is normally done on paper or card, but it can also be done on fabrics, and sheets of plastic or metal. Books and magazines are printed on a machine called a printing press. The text and pictures start as patterns on a plate. In the press, the plate is inked so that these areas become ink-covered, and are pressed on to the paper via a rubber-covered drum. A fast printing press can make several prints a second because each print is made by one simple operation.
Early printing methods
One of the first methods of printing was woodblock printing, where the images to be printed were carved in reverse into wooden blocks. The blocks were then inked and pressed on to paper to make a print. Ink from the raised areas was transferred on to the paper. Simple block printing is still used for hand-printed textiles.
First printing press
Two of the most important inventions in printing were moveable metal type (which allowed words and paragraphs to be built up from individual metal blocks with letters on them) and the printing press. In Europe, these were both developed in the 1430s by the German goldsmith and inventor Johannes Gutenberg (1395–1468). They allowed books to be printed in large quantities, whereas before each book had to be hand-copied.
Desktop publishing
Nowadays, type and pictures for a book, magazine or leaflet are usually designed and laid out on a computer using desktop publishing software. Illustrations are converted into digital images using scanners. The digital files from the computer may then be sent to the printer, which uses them to make four printing plates, one for each colour of ink on the printing press.
Colour printing
On a printed colour page, the text is normally solid black ink, while the pictures are made up of tiny dots of coloured—and black—ink. These can be seen by holding a magnifying glass over the printed page. The larger the dots, the stronger the colour.
Most colour printing is done with just four colours of ink: cyan, magenta, yellow and black. By printing dots in varying sizes, the first three colours combine to create almost any other colour. In practice, all three mix to create brown, so black is used to darken some areas.
Modern printing press
In a modern printing press, printing is carried out using a sheet of metal called a printing plate, rather than with individual blocks of type. The shape of the letters that make up the text, together with the dots that make up the pictures, appear as patterns on the surface of the plate. The plates are prepared using photographic and chemical processes.
A four-colour press is actually four presses in one. Each press adds ink of one colour (cyan, magenta, yellow and black) to the paper, building up the final colours. Each press uses a method of printing called offset lithography. The printing plate is placed round a drum. As the drum rotates, ink is transferred to it from a system of ink rollers. The pattern of ink is then transferred to a rubber-covered drum, called a blanket, and from this to the paper itself.
For most publications, the paper needs to be printed on both sides. Some presses can do this but on others the paper has to be sent through the press twice. Several pages of the final book or magazine are normally printed on each sheet of paper. The sheets then go for print finishing, where machines fold, collate (sort), staple or sew, and trim the sheets to create the finished product.
3D printing
Three-dimensional printing, also known as additive-layer manufacturing, was first developed in the 1980s, but from about 2011 onwards has become more widely used. The technology works by building up layer upon layer of material—powder, paper, plastic or metal—to build complex solid objects. Any shape can be made from a computer-aided design (CAD) file. The layers, which correspond to cross-sections from the CAD file, are joined together to create the final shape.
The technology of 3D printing can be used to produce artificial human bones for transplants, prototypes of cars or buildings, machine parts, jewellery, sculptures, clothing, shoes and a wide range of other objects. Studies have been made into the possibility of making human organs and body parts using 3D printing technology. In this process, layers of living cells are slowly built up to form organs or tissue, including even the blood vessels inside.
Fused deposition modelling (FDM), which uses a continuous thread of a thermoplastic material, is the most common 3D printing process in use.
Consultant: Chris Oxlade
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