.jpg)
Typo: A Monthly Newspaper and Literary Review, Volume 5
[Multi-Color Printing]
Multi-Color Printing.—We noted some months ago that a New York paper had succeeded in printing at a single impression an advertisement in color in the centre of a black form. Several methods of producing this result have now been brought into practical operation; but the necessary mechanism is much too intricate and costly ever to come into general use. The principle in all these inventions is much the same. The bed of the press is specially constructed in movable sections, and a stereotype form is prepared in sections to correspond. The portions of the form required to be of any given color are caused to rise automatically to a sufficient height to be inked independently of the rest of the form, and this operation is repeated for each color, the whole form being brought to a common level before receiving the impression. While the ingenuity of the process deserves admiration, its many disadvantages, apart from its great cost, must be evident to any printer, A simpler variation of the plan —obviously unsuited for fine work—is to have the colored portions permanently depressed, inked by a pad attached to a cylinder, and the impression effected by means of a sufficiently thick overlay.