Digital Printout, Solvent, Eco-Solvent & Inkjet Printing

Today, the printing technology has been advancing beyond the boundaries. It is now possible to print anything and everything, within a fraction of time maintaining the same accuracy and quality of the printing. All the credit goes to number of printing options, available in the current market place, such as digital printouts and/or inkjet printing etc. One of the commonly asked questions about digital printouts is the right choice between solvent prints as well as eco-solvent prints. Some of the tips in this regard, mentioned herewith can be essential to sort the confusion.

Eco-solvent printing

The eco-solvent printing is associated with mild suspension of the colors, especially dissolved in bio-degradable solvents. The machine that specifies these kinds of inks are typically acknowledged to print more kind of prints with the highest resolution ever. As a matter of fact, these ink heads have nozzle that can be used to spray the colors in the form of droplets or size 10 picolitres or less. It is quite obvious that the smaller the droplet size, the higher is the quality of the print with very fine resolution. It is also to be noted that these types of eco solvent printing machines need specifically coated media for printing upon. And this specific chemistry of the solvent and the coated media contributes to the higher cost of the printing. However, the technology is widely acknowledged for printing beautiful images with realistic picture quality and are typically suggested for indoor applications.

Solvent Printing

These types of solvent inks are much more aggressive and are made up of non-biodegradable solvents. These types of inks have a typical pungent odor and thus, prolonged exposure to these solvents can be extremely harmful. However, the strong solvent complex and complex chemistry associated with it can allow printing with uncoated media or media with less coating. These inks are also much more resistant to exposure to sunlight and water. Further to which, these kinds of solvent flex printing machines are equipped with comparatively large drop size and hence the ink that has been spread each time is between 40-60 picolitres, resulting in slightly grainy image. Thus, these types of printing method may look sort of crude, when it comes to the modern style of printing. Next time, when you would be able to locate a large sized hoarding of almost 40 feet or so, you should be sure to note that it is one of the creations of solvent printing and the crude image quality is not even noticed from such a large distance. Some of the important pointers, helping you to make a right decision between solvent as well as eco-solvent printing can be noted as follows:

• Solvent printing is cheaper as compared to eco-solvent printing.
• Solvent printing is much preferred for outdoor applications, like hoarding, flex etc.; whereas the indoor applications are fulfilled with eco-solvent ink.
• There is no smell of eco-solvent system, whereas that of solvent is very pungent and can be harmful for humans.
• Solvent printings are useful for short-lived commercial applications, whereas eco-solvent printing is helpful for permanent applications.