A Study of Conventional vs. Waterless Lithography

Waterless printing has received much attention in recent trade journals and printing equipment exhibitions 1, 2, 3, 4. Numerous reasons have been cited as to why it is a preferred printing process over its conventional counterpart. However, little quantitative data is available that describes the capability of waterless printing. In order to gain a deeper understanding of the waterless printing process, a four-color sheet-fed press capable of printing with and without water was used in this experiment. This research compares the process capabilities of waterless lithography and conventional lithography in terms of solid ink density through press sheet sampling, densitometric measurement, and data analysis. Several statistical methods are used to analyze the data, and initial findings are reported in terms of printing consistency of both processes. This research compares the process capabilities of waterless lithography and conventional lithography in terms of solid ink density through press sheet sampling, densitometric measurement, and data analysis. Several statistical methods are used to analyze the data, and initial findings are reported in terms of printing consistency of both processes.