SIC 2752 Commercial Printing, Lithographic
SIC 2752
This category includes establishments involved primarily in printing by various processes involving lithography. It includes printers using web and flat sheet technologies. Terms describing the processes include offset printing, photo-offset printing, photolithography, and planography.
Most of this industry's work is done on a custom-job basis. Typical products include advertising posters, circulars, coupons, and labels. In addition, some products such as calendars, maps, posters, and decalcomanias are bulk manufactured and offered for sale. Greeting card printers, however, are classified in SIC 2771.
Lithographed newspapers and periodicals made by printing companies that are not publishers are also included in this industry. Establishments primarily involved in printing books are classified in SIC 2732. Newspaper, periodical, and book publishers are classified in SICs 2711, 2721, and 2731, respectively.
Establishments primarily involved in preparing plates and related prepress services are classified in SIC 2796. Establishments offering photocopying services are classified in SIC 7334.
323114
Quick Printing
323110
Commercial Lithographic Printing
"Lithography" describes the printing process in which ink is transferred from a plate with a level surface that has been chemically treated to make some areas ink-receptive and others ink-repellent. The term "offset lithography" was coined to describe the process by which an image is transferred from a lithographic plate onto a rubber blanket cylinder and then pressed from the cylinder onto paper or other substrates. About 50 percent of all the printing done in the United States is lithographic.
In 2005, approximately 13,570 establishments were involved in commercial lithographic printing, with another 7,096 classified as "quick printers." The commercial lithographic printing industry shipped approximately $51.1 billion in goods in 2006, according to a report by Supplier Relations US LLC. Advertising products account for the largest share, followed by magazines and periodicals, catalogs and directories, labels and wrappers, financial and legal documents, and other products.
The term "lithography" comes from two Greek words: lithos, meaning "stone," and graphien, meaning"to write." The process was developed by the German inventor Aloys Senefelder, who discovered that by treating limestone with gum arabic, nitric acid, and a mixture of soap and tallow, he could make parts of the stone repel printing ink and parts of it repel water. In 1798, Senefelder perfected his process for use in printing.
Early lithographic plates were made from limestone, and presses were made of wood. During the first two decades of the 1800s, technical advances fueled the printing industry. Cast iron plates helped improve impression quality, and steam-driven cylinder presses increased operating efficiency. The ability to print in color was developed in 1837. A typical nineteenth-century press could print approximately 600 impressions per hour.
The twentieth century brought innovations to increase press speeds and improve image resolution. Ira W. Rubel and Caspar Hermann, both of New Jersey, developed thin metal plates in 1904. Their success fostered the development of rotary lithography, a procedure in which the plate was mounted on a cylinder. By the late 1980s, advances in offset rotary press technology had produced presses capable of making 30,000 impressions per hour, printing on both sides of the paper, and receiving paper in sheets or from large rolls called "webs."
Despite its widespread use, many people find lithography more difficult to understand than other printing processes. Unlike methods in which printing plates contain raised or etched images, lithographic plates are flat. To create a lithographic plate, a plate maker begins with a thin piece of metal coated with an oil-based emulsion. A photographic negative of the image to be printed is placed over the plate, which is then exposed to a bright light. The light reacts with the uncovered emulsion so that when the plate is chemically washed, the emulsion remains only in the image area. During the printing process, water is used to wet the bare metal, non-image areas of the plate. Printing ink, an oil-based product, is able to adhere only to the emulsion in the image area.
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