A Washington, DC printer believes that printing is among the most noteworthy industrial advancements in society’s history.  Printing creates the potential to give out thoughts and guarantee their continued existence through the generations of humankind.  The printing process was initially developed for the exchange and storage of information adapted for human vision.

Some have traced the origins of printing back to the seals used to ‘sign’ official or executive documents as early as 225 B.C.  Changeable metal lettering were first introduced in 1232 in Korea and then 200 years later, a German man name Johannes Gutenberg invented the machine again and increased this method all through Europe.

DC printers explained that there are five major printing processes that still exist today.  They are: relief, the contact relocation of a pattern, intaglio, lithography, screening and electophotography – also known as xeroxing.

Relief printing consists of letterpress printing, flexographic printing, and other procedures of moving a representation from a raised facade.  Letter pressed printing is being replaced in many areas of flexographic that is a rotary relief printing process in which the image is carried on a rubber stamp or an elastic rubber plate with raised illustration area and is built up onto a polymer or steel backplane to provide sideways immovability.

Intaglio printing, sometimes referred to as gravure, is the opposite development of relief printing – an intaglio image is conveying from a deep-set plane.

Lithography uses a chemically patterned flat surface with areas that allow ink in and areas that deter the ink.  Originally, the lithographic process provided the name for both today’s manuscript technology and the ocular lithographies used in the semiconductor business.

Today many printing companies use an offset printing press which consists of a soft planar intermediate medium to improve the transfer quality from a master to the paper publication.  This style of printing can be used with relief, intaglio and lithographic printing processes.