Process Color Printing On A One-color Press

The fact of the matter is, ink trapping is a complicated issue affected by several different but related factors. Trapping is affected by the absorbency or hold-out of the paper (coated vs. uncoated), the speed of the press (fast web vs. slower sheetfed), dwell time or distance between impressions (unitized in-line or common impression cylinder CIC design like a T-head), as well as the ink's tack, pigment-to-vehicle ratio (called loading) and ink film thickness (IFT). Tack is the force required to split an ink film in half. An inkometer is a device that measures the ink's tack. All of these factors must be considered when discussing trapping.