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Pad Printing Vs. Screen Printing

Pad Printing Vs. Screen Printing thumbnail
Screen-printing is what people think of when they think of traditional printing.

When looking at printing from an outside perspective, it's hard to understand just what method is used for what product. Screen printing and pad printing are both time-honored and popular techniques used in printing today.

  1. Pad Printing

    • Pad printing uses a combination of silicon printing pad and a process that creates semi-sticky inks. Ink is filled into an etched surface; as the ink becomes sticky, the pad picks it up and transfers it to the surface that the ink is to be printed on.

    Screen Printing

    • Also called silk screening, this method of printing uses a frame with a mesh or screen stretched across it. The design is created on the screen; this entire apparatus is referred to as the stencil. Typically ink is used to print the design from the stencil to the medium.

    Difference

    • Screen printing is most commonly used in the textile industry; custom-designed t-shirts are often created with screen printing. Pad printing is good for printing to 3D objects with difficult shape; the most common example of pad printing is on keyboards.

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References

  • Photo Credit old printing image by Alexander Ivanov from Fotolia.com

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