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Media Production Services

Printing Services

Something that most people don’t consider when planning their print project is what type of machine it will be printed on. The two types of presses that are most commonly used for commercial printing are a Digital Press or an Offset Press. Print shops across the world tend to merely offer either Digital Printing or Offset Printing. At Media Production Services we recognize the cost and quality benefit of having both options available.

Please contact our CSRs for pricing and quote information.

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Digital Colour Printing

A digital printing press does not require plates and can utilize either toner or ink, depending on the press. A digital press is still a four-color printing process, but it requires far less make-ready and manual accuracy than offset printing. For these reasons, Digital Printing is synonymous with short-run printing.

 

Black & White Printing

Black-and-white production is here to stay. It continues to be the largest, most stable- and cost-effective segment of the printing market and offers continued opportunities for growth. It’s also highly competitive, with tight deadlines, intense pressure to control costs, and many customers demanding an expanding range of applications.Black-an-white printing is fast, easy, and with less impact to the environment. At Media Production Services we have powerful, high-speed, high-quality, monochrome digital perfecting press that are second to none.

Large Format Printing

When you need an oversized graphics display for a meeting, trade show, storefront, special event – and so on – you’re moving into large-format printing territory. Think building wraps, billboards, banners, POP displays, even vehicle graphics. These are all produced on special equipment by Media Production Services.

Large-format printing is one of the few graphics specialties that are not easily (or definitively) defined, because the technology keeps improving and more and more presses are introduced to the market. The term is sometimes referred to as “wide format,” making it even more confusing.

 

Offset Printing

Offset printing is printing on a 4 color lithography press where the pages of your project are imposed onto a plate. The image is then transferred to an intermediate blanket cylinder that prints one of the 4 CMYK colors at a time onto the individual pages of your product. This requires a pretty elaborate setup process as well as manual accuracy from the press operator. Offset presses are very consistent and efficient once setup, though.  

With offset printing, the cost and time associated with the make-ready makes it a costly option for short-run printing (typically 1,000 or less). For higher quantities (typically 1,000+), offset printing begins to become more cost effective. Offset materials such as ink are cheaper, so when printing a larger order, you make up the cost of the make-ready.

For more direction and cost estimates please contact mps@mcmaster.ca or 905-525-9140 Ext. 24446.

Specialty Papers

Specialty papers are defined as papers that are manufactured or subsequently converted to a specific usage. They are either manufactured separately, or normal paper is converted into specialty paper by coating it with a specialty paper and pulp chemicals, thus making it usable for a specific application.

Think of metallic paper, felt paper, linens, shiny, textured paper, carbon-less forms paper, plastic paper. If you have something in mind, we can help you out at Media Production Services mps@mcmaster.ca or 905.525.9140 Ext. 24446.