The Printing Champions

Art Reproduction Printing

High Quality Art Reproduction

Typically the reproduction of all completed art work is now done by first creating a color separation by photographic means. In this process the original artwork is photographed through filters and split into 4 negatives representing the four printing colors of cyan, magenta, yellow and black. These colors will be recombined during the printing process.

A similar process is now carried out by scanners, largely replacing the production of photographic negatives. From the digitized color separation data, printing plates are produced. Once the plates are placed on a four color printing press, they will be each color will be printed in turn, one on top of the other so that the combines and finished product will look as good as the original.

If you have some fine art or other pictures or paintings you would like reproduced, call us now toll free for a chat without obligation.

This can be done equally well on a single color printing press, but it would require four passes of each piece of paper through the press to achieve the final result. Of course between each pass the printing plates would have to be changed, the presses cleaned, the new plates mounted and the paper passed once more through the printing process for the overlaying of the next color. With a 2-color printing press the work would be only half as much.

The very best printing presses for this type of printing are Heidelberg.

All modern color photocopiers use a similar technique, and the quality of the output is truly outstanding. They scan and separate, and then they combine and print using the same four color process. In many cases the quality is good enough for fine art reproduction vintage printing. The process that would be chosen is driven by price.

For a large print run, say over 5,000 copies, it would be worth considering using lithographic printing rather than photocopying. Whatever the choice it is important to identify the break point where the cost per sheet is cheaper using photocopying than it is printing, or vice versa.

The upshot is that when considering art quality reproduction printing, the key issue is the number of printed copies required. That will inform the most cost effective way to produce them. These days art reproduction printing is available to every person at amazingly reasonable prices.

Another consideration is the size of the reproduced copy. Photocopiers generally do not produce anything above A0, so it may well be necessary to uses a printing press unless one is prepared to reduce the size of the original for the copies. This may well be acceptable, and when reducing, it will come without any fall off in quality. Of course the converse is not true - when enlarging, there can be a marked reduction in the quality of the reproduction.

 Call us Toll Free Now - 7am to 7pm MST