The Instant Indirect Offset Printing is a low-cost printing press that works by forcing ink through a Instant Indirect Printing Film stencil onto paper. Instant Indirect Offset Printing is a common technology in printing small quantities, as in office work materials, classroom materials, and church bulletins. Early fanzines were printed with this technology, because it was widespread and cheap.

1. Instant Indirect Offset Printing
The Instant Indirect Offset Printing is a low-
cost printing press that works by forcing ink
through a Instant Indirect Printing Film
stencil onto paper. Instant Indirect Offset
Printing is a common technology in printing
small quantities, as in office work materials,
classroom materials, and church bulletins.
Early fanzines were printed with this
technology, because it was widespread and
cheap. In the late 1960s, these thecnique
began to be gradually displaced
by photocopying and offset printing.

2. Origins
• Use of stencils is an ancient art but through
chemistry, papers, and presses techniques
with Instant Indirect Offset Printing film
advanced rapidly in the late nineteenth
century:

3. Terms
• The terms listed below will get you well on your way to understanding your offset printer and the language that
they use.
• Bleed – A bleed occurs when your color or image extends off of the printed piece, typically bleeds are created
when the printed piece is trimmed.
CMYK – Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black are the colors used in 4 color process printing. On the printing press
they are run in a specific order. Black, Cyan, Magenta and Yellow, the most transparent of the four and
containing the most varnish in the formula is yellow and is laid down last. The most opaque color, black, is laid
down first. Following this sequence allows for brighter imaging and better control of color.
Color Densitometer – A piece of equipment used by press personnel to determine the density of the ink color
being laid down on the printed sheet. It has a numerical digital read out and the higher the readout on the
densitometer, the greater the amount of ink that is being laid down on the sheet. While there is a wide variance
in the numbers used, the average range is:
• Cyan and Magenta reading around 135 to 145……… Yellow around 105 and Black anywhere from 175 to
210………….. This is only a generalization and the densities that are run should be left up to the press personnel.
Color Density – The amount of ink printed on the sheet.
• Instant Print Film – A sheet of material that is processed with the image on it. This material will be placed over
the printing plate and with the use of light, burning the image into the printing plate, determining the ink
receptive areas of the plate.
• Halftone – The screening of a continuous tone image, converting the image into different sized, yet, equally
spaced dots.
• Impression – Each time the sheet passes through the press and is printed, it is an impression. The terminology is
useful in production scheduling and estimating because it determines the quantity of the run and the efficiency
and speed of the press and the operator.
• Moiré – A pattern that is created from incorrect screen angles seen in the CMYK printing process
• Offset – The printing process that uses a blanket to receive the ink from the plate and then impresses it onto a
sheet of paper as the paper passes between the blanket and a hard steel cylinder called an Impression Cylinder.
• Perfect Bind – A type of binding that combines the cover and the inside pages on the spine with glue. Magazine
examples that are perfect bound are Photoshop User, Mac Design, Graphic Arts Monthly and Communication
Arts.

4. Terms
• Registration – The alignment of dots in relation to each other. When the cyan, magenta, yellow and black plates
are aligned and brought into focus, the printed piece is considered to be in register.
• RIP – Raster Image Processing………… a computer language that arranges the dots, solids, lines and type in a
particular pattern concerning densities and angles. The function of the RIP is to send instructions to the film
processor, telling the processor where to place each item and what angle each item is to be placed in relation to
the other items on the film or combination of films used in creating the image.
• Saddle Stitch – The binding of a book using wire staples on the binding edge to hold the book together. Some
magazine and flyer examples are PC Connection, Micro Warehouse and the Java Developers Journal.
Score – A crease that is impressed into the paper. Scoring will allow for exact folding on heavier stocks and helps
to eliminate the cracking of some substrates.
Separations – In four color process printing you have a continuous tone image that is separated into four
different colors, CMYK, enabling it to be printed. The process begins with scanning an image. The scanned image
is then separated into the four process colors. These are processed on film flats with each flat representing a
separation.
Sheet Fed Press – A printing press that prints individual sheets of paper as opposed to rolls.
• Signature – A parent sheet that consists of 4, 8 or 16 pages depending on the size of the montage that is built for
the press it is scheduled to run on. The signature is then folded, collated (depending on how many pages are
needed to complete the project), glued or stitched and then trimmed.
• Spot Color-PMS-Pantone – Colors that are mixed in batches and are identified by a number. The number can be
followed by a C (Coated) or U ( Uncoated). The formula is designed for the type of substrate it is to be printed on
taking into consideration the porosity of the paper.
Trapping – The overlay or over printing of dots in relation to each other to compensate for miss-registration on
the printing press creating an illusion of tight register.
Web Press – A printing press that prints rolls of papers

5. Process
• The image transfer medium was originally a stencil made from Instant Indirect Offset Printing film
also know as Instant Print Film. It is a type of printing material and used for low cost short run small
format printing applications in printing industry. Later this became an immersion-coated long-fibre
film, with the coating being a plasticized nitrocellulose. This flexible waxed or coated sheet is
backed by a sheet of stiff card stock, with the two sheets bound at the top.
• Once prepared, the stencil is wrapped around the ink-filled drum of the rotary machine. When a
blank sheet of paper is drawn between the rotating drum and a pressure roller, ink is forced on the
stencil onto the paper. Early flatbed machines used a kind of squeegee. The ink originally had
a lanolin base and later became oil in water emulsion. This emulsion commonly used Turkey-Red Oil
(Sulfated Castor Oil) which gives it a distinctive and heavy scent.
• This film is then burned onto a lithographic plate, using a plate burner. The plate is then put on
an offset printing press to make a product. This process requires a clean environment, skilled
workers, and a well thought out proofing system / workflow to maximize quality.
• With technological advancement in heat stabilization of Instant Print Film, provide excellent image
registration and sharpness for multi-colour jobs. Each of these four images is printed on a separate
Instant Print Film. The films are then used to expose pre-sensitized plates using U.V lights.
•
• This is a process that is used by many artisans for short-run jobs. It is such a less expensive process
that many screen printing units are operated out of garages. But that does not mean that these
printing cannot offer good quality printing. It is a pretty simple process to understand and operate.
Basically if you have seen how printing is done from a stencil, then you have probably seen the
process of these printing. The process is pretty much like image creation and it is mostly manual at
the printing stage. The image that needs to be printed is first captured on Instant Print Film. A film
is stretched tightly by hinging around a wooden frame called screen. The non-image areas are
blocked out during the stage of image creation itself. The screen is laid over the substrate that is to
be printed and ink is poured on the frame over the screen. The ink is then wiped across the surface
of the screen using a device called a squeeze. A squeeze is a wooden device that has a rubber
blade. It facilitates the smooth flow of ink over the screen.This ink is thus printed onto the substrate
beneath

6. Printing capabilities
• Since the printing surface in the screen printing
process is very flexible, it allows printing on
three-dimensional objects too. This is something
that the printing processes discussed earlier
cannot offer. A substrate that is two-dimensional
and flat is all that can be fed into those machines;
in the case of these printing, the printing surface
itself can be wound around the substrate. So
objects like cups, mugs, watches or other
irregular-shaped products can be done using the
these printing process. Although this description
of these printing may sound quite simple. Multi-
color printing presses employing these printing
process with capability to print on different
substrates like polyester, metal, and pressure-
sensitive materials are today a common scenario.

7. Printing features
• Printing by forcing ink through a stenciled screen
mesh image directly onto substrate
• Principal applications: can print on any substrate;
point-of purchase displays, billboards, decals,
fabric, electronic circuit boards, glasses, etc.
• Short run lengths (small format) only
• Ink formulation, screen mesh count, and image
type are major quality factors
• Very fast processing
• Recognition characteristics: heavy, durable,
brilliant layer of ink
• Low cost short run small format Printing
applications

8. Limitations
• In theory, the these process could be continued indefinitely,
especially if a durable stencil master were used (e.g. a thin metal
foil). In practice, most low-cost stencils gradually wear out over the
course of producing several hundred copies. Typically the stencil
deteriorates gradually, producing a characteristic degraded image
quality until the stencil tears, abruptly ending the print run. If
further copies are desired at this point, another stencil must be
made.
• Often, the stencil material covering the interiors of
closed letterforms (e.g. "a", "b", "d", "e", "g", etc.) would fall away
during continued printing, causing ink-filled letters in the copies.
The stencil would gradually stretch, starting near the top where the
mechanical forces were greatest; causing a characteristic "mid-line
sag" in the textual lines of the copies that would progress until the
stencil failed completely.
• Compared to spirit duplication, these process produced a darker,
more legible image. Spirit duplicated images were usually tinted a
light purple or lavender, which gradually became lighter over the
course of some dozens of copies.

9. Durability
• Instant Print Film images generally have much
better durability than spirit duplicated images.
The primary preservation challenge is the low-
quality paper often used, which would yellow and
degrade due to residual acid in the treated pulp
from which the paper was made. In the worst
case, old copies can literally crumble into small
particles when handled. Instant Print Film imaged
copies have moderate durability when acid-free
paper is used. But Instant Print Film not to expose
in sunlight.

10. Uses and art
• These process are used for low-budget
amateur publishing, including club newsletters
and church bulletins, Poster, Signage,
Pamphlet, Brochure. Letters and typographical
symbols were sometimes used to create
illustrations. Because changing ink color in a
these process could be a laborious process,
involving extensively cleaning the machine or,
on newer models, replacing the drum or
rollers, and then running the paper through
the machine a second time.