About Coatings

The two most common reasons for adding a coating over your printed piece are

• For protection: To avoid scuffing the ink, if you have included areas of heavy ink coverage.1,Dried inks show fingerprints and scuffing, especially in dark solids.
• And for aesthetic reasons: to draw the reader's eye to particular items, to add depth and interest to your printed piece.

Film Lamination: A clear plastic film sheeting that is heat sealed to the paper surface to provide an extremely hard and very protective finish which is even more resistant than UV coating, and at a lower cost to boot. Lamination is available in either matte or gloss application and, in gloss form, is even more glossy than UV Coating. While Matte lamination provides a dull, satin finish that tends to feel fairly rich.

Varnish: An oil based coating providing a mild sheen and protective qualities to printed material. Varnish may be added in-line when printing (wet trapped), or as an additional coating after the printed matter has dried (dry-trapped) and may be either gloss or matte. While usually added as an "all over" coating, it may also be produced as a Spot Varnish. Varnish is a relatively inexpensive procedure which, when dry trapped to gloss coated paper can provide a rich lustre to a print work, but has neither the protective qualities nor the shine of coatings like UV and Lamination.

Aqueous Coating: A water based coating whose protective properties lie somewhere above varnish and below UV coatings. Generally used to provide a finish with most of the protective capability of UV coatings, but with more of a satin finish. While providing a richer feel than Varnish, Aqueous does, however, cost twice as much as varnish.

UV Coating: A coating which, when cured under Ultra-Violet light, creates a glossy, highly protective surface with a rich, smooth feel. While not as protective as Lamination, UV is a very high quality finish, with a price tag to match. It is preferred for high end magazines, catalogs and books. While generally used as an "all over" coating, it can also be used as a Spot UV

Spot UV: A UV coating used to cover a single photo or other isolated area. Spot UV works very well to highlight a photo, logo or other important design attribute, particularly if added to a matte surface, for added contrast. Can be expensive.

When making this decision, keep in mind the following:

• 1, Dried inks show fingerprints and scuffing, especially in dark solids.
• 2, Press coatings (like varnish) cost less than bindery (off-press) coatings (like UV coating and laminates) since bindery coatings are applied over dry ink at slow speeds. Because the chemicals used in aqueous coating damage press rollers, this coating is more expensive for the printer/binder to apply than varnish; therefore, the extra cost is passed on to the client.
• 3, Varnish is the least effective way to prevent scuffing, particularly when publications are multiply shrink-wrapped (as opposed to singly shrink-wrapped) prior to shipping. Bindery coatings like UV coating and laminates are far better for protecting loose books in transit. Even aqueous coating is much stronger than varnish and can therefore withstand books shifting around in transit without scuffing.
• 4, You cannot print (ink-jet or by hand), glue, or foil stamp over coatings, so you need to leave an uncoated window if you want to do any of these (coatings should be the final finishing step on a printed piece).
• 5, You should only varnish coated stock, or the coating will seep into the paper and be lost.
• 6, Some coatings deepen the ink color they cover, yellow with age, and/or discolor white paper.