Photograph: The eFlex Machine The label that manufacturers place on their products is often the first thing that is seen by customers and is key to driving sales. With this in mind manufacturers are demanding the best quality labels from label printing companies. From a label printer’s perspective it is important to invest in the right equipment to create the high-quality striking labels that your customers will need. Having the right combination of equipment and software is essential to putting your business at the top of the label printing chain. At Focus Label Machinery we specialise in the design, manufacture and supply of flexographic printing presses to the commercial printing industry. Our printing presses are manufactured in the United Kingdom to the highest international specifications and standards and offer customers superior quality printing and efficiency. We offer our customers a full-service solution providing advice, training and machinery required for label printing.

Flexographic printing imprints a crystal-clear image onto a substrate from flexible print plates wrapped around rapidly rotating rollers, enabling the fast printing of long-run orders with no loss of quality. You’ll be familiar with the method if you’ve seen film of newspapers being churned out at incredible speed on long sheets of paper, but flexographic printing is also used to produce food packaging, gift wrap, wallpaper and self-adhesive labels. As modern technology has improved the ease with which the print plates can be created and customised, flexo has cemented its position as a leader in high-volume label and packaging printing.

In flexo printing, 'image transfer' refers to the process by which an image is transferred from the image carrier to the substrate it is printed onto. As we have previously covered, this image transfer process is actually one of the main differences between flexo printing and offset printing. In this post, we take a closer look at image transfer.

Flexo printing defects are frustrating and expensive, harming the quality of your printed products and making print jobs look unprofessional. Fortunately, the most common printing defects also have common causes and, in many cases, simple solutions. In this blog post, we look at three of the most common defects you should be aware of.

'Dot gain', sometimes known as tone value increase (TVI), is a flexo printing defect characterised by the diameter of halftone dots increasing during the printing process. Essentially, this means the dots on your printed substrate come out larger than intended and, in many cases, this will result in printed material looking darker or fuzzier. Ultimately, dot gain is a problem because it can have a detrimental impact on the quality of your final printed product. Dot gain is usually expressed as a numerical value, giving the difference between the dot size on the source file and the actual dot size on the final printed product. Fortunately, with flexo printing, there are steps that can be taken to minimise the problem. Let’s take a look.

Have you ever wondered whether investing in a new flexographic press is worth it? Currently businesses need to choose their investments wisely. This is particularly the case for flexographic Printing Presses. Designed to last for decades, flexographic presses quickly become a crucial element of the fabric of the organisation. It pays to get it right. Here are some of the reasons why the right modern flexographic press can enhance your company.