Process Color Printing On A One-color Press

Generally, one and two color presses have less dot gain than multicolor presses. I say this because one source of dot gain, and there are many, is dot shapes that have some how become distorted. This special type of dot gain is called doubling and slurring.

Slurring occurs when the round dot or other dot shape is no longer symmetrical but becomes elongated, like an oval or comet tail. Doubling occurs when an already printed dot prints slightly out of register on the next unit's blanket. The next revolution then prints a faint ghost dot of lower density next to the darker dot. Doubling is most readily seen in the fine highlight dots when viewed under magnification.