Card printing methods

Offset printing ensures highest print quality. The overprint is made during the card manufacturing process and applied under the outer laminate layer (in fact inside a card), thus protecting it efficiently against wear. Any colour raster graphic and photographs can be printer on a card. A 2400 DPI definition/resolution print is made using the full CMYK and Pantone colour palette. The print quality corresponds to that of typical pay cards offered by big banks.

On account of production preparation costs printing is justified economically for a batch of at least 500 cards. One should remember the entire impression is printed with one die, thus ensuring its uniformity. Offset printed cards are often a kind of a half product for further overprinting by thermo sublimation / thermo transfer (personalization, e.g. printing of a photo and name in remained white fields of an ID).

Silk-screen printing is best suited for smaller card impressions (100- 200 pieces).The overprint is made on a surface and every colour is applied at a definition of 1270 dpi. Colours of the Pantone palette. Printing of special colours like gold and silver is possible. For technology reasons photographs, rasters and colour/hue transitions cannot be printed.

Cards bearing inscriptions and graphics composed of uniform single colour fields can be printed by this method. Usually this technique is used to print cards for a regular customer for small companies, club member cards and key cards of auto-ID systems. With larger batches (above 500 pieces) the offset technology is more useful, as it offers lower costs and a better overprint quality.

Thermo sublimation / thermo transfer printing: cards are printed with plastic card printing machines similar to usual desktop printers for paper. The dye from a special foil is transferred directly on a card. Printers can print in colour spanning a full colour palette i.e. 16.7 million colours (thermo sublimation) or monochromatic patterns in black, blue, red, green, white, gold or silver can also be printed (thermo transfer).

Each printed card can be different. Due to this feature this method is best suited to make ID-cards with a photograph or to personalize cards earlier printed by the offset method (e.g. additional printing of photographs and personal data). The overprint is made on the surface and can be protected by a transparent protecting layer protecting it against abrasion or by a holographic layer. Selected places on a card can be covered with a so-called "scrape-off" foil. No limitation of the minimum batch size.