Printing presses come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and offer different functions or capabilities. Today, we’re going to talk about a printing press that offers the capability of printing both sides of a sheet of paper during a single press pass: the Perfecting Press.
What is a Perfecting Press?
In the realm of printing there are, essentially, two kinds of presses: 1) sheet-fed presses; 2) roll-fed presses. Sheet-fed presses pass single sheets of paper through the press one at a time; roll-fed presses are fed from a continuous roll of paper. All roll-fed presses, also known as web offset presses, are perfecting presses because the paper only flows through the press once. And, while virtually all web offset presses are capable of printing both sides of the paper in one pass, not all sheet-fed presses offer this function.
For four-color (CMYK) printing, a press requires a unit (or tower) for each color of ink. To print four-color on both sides of a sheet, a perfecting press requires an additional four towers. Hence, these kinds of presses are sometimes referred to as 8-color presses.
Perfecting presses are ideal for production runs when time is of the essence. If both sides of a sheet of paper can be printed simultaneously, then it will take less time to create the finished pieces. And, less production time equals lower price.
If you have any questions about perfecting presses, give us a call (330-597-8560). We’re happy to help you get the most out of your printing project.
