Flexography or Surface Printing
Flexography (also known as surface printing), and often abbreviated to flexo, is a method of printing. Flexo or surface printing is most commonly used for packaging (Labels, Tape, Bags, Boxes, Banners, Etc). Over the last few years surface printing has become very popular as a “high end” wallpaper printing method
A flexo or surface print is achieved by creating a mirrored image of the required image as a 3D relief in a rubber or polymer material. The required amount of ink is deposited upon the surface of the surface printing plate (or printing cylinder) using an anilox roll. An anilox is the same as a Gravure roller but has a much finer screen ruling.The surface print roller then rotates, contacting the print material which transfers the ink.
Originally flexo / surface printing was extremely basic in quality and setup. Labels requiring high quality have generally been printed Offset until recently. In the last few years great advances have been made to the quality of flexo printing presses. Finer screens have been used for flexo engraving and developments in software have meant that the “Dots” are barely visible now.
A great method for removing dot structure from a halftone screened flexo roller is to apply what is called a mezzo dither dot. Mezzo’s have no mechanical structure to them and use clever software techniques to apply the patterns to the artworks. (A full demonstration and instruction manual on this will be published shortly and can be achieved using only Photoshop)
The greatest advances though have been in the area of PhotoPolymer Printing Plates, including improvements to the plate material and the method of plate creation. This is achieved using photographic exposure and some chemical etching technoques. Direct laser engraving is also used.