Lenticular images can be produced in many different ways.
A single piece can be printed on an inkjet printer and laminated to a lenticular sheet using double sided adhesive.
Inkjet printing presses enable the printing of small quantities of lenticular images directly on to the lenticular sheet.
The evolution of UV printing increased the use of sheet fed offset presses, printing higher volume production runs directly on to the reverse side of the sheet.
Large format images are printed using large format inkjet printers, today the UV Flatbed printers allow direct printing to the lenticular plastic sheet.

Illustrated with a short video, we will give you a short explanation about the different current printing solutions.

Lenticular labels printed on a flexographic press

This is a roll of MicroFlex™ lenticular PP printed on flexographic equipment by Germark, images prepared by Pixel.nl.

Offset sheet fed printing

Offset is the mainstream solution for high quality printing of lenticular images. This printing technique is well suited for small to medium print runs in a variety of different sizes, ranging from postcards to big posters. The choice of the inks will depend on the drying system, but UV curing systems using  special UV inks are commonly used for printing lenticular sheets. Some ink suppliers can be found on this links page.

During IPEX 2010, KBA Metroprint was demonstrating lenticular print on the Genius 52 UV press.
See here the images of the demo:

Offset web printing

Another technique is offset web printing. Printing and print quality is similar to a sheet fed offset press, but on a web press the printing material is supplied on a roll. This printing technique is well suited for medium to large print runs in predominantly small sizes. The majority of these presses use inline UV curing.

DI press

DI presses are also well suited for printing lenticular images. Thanks to the on-press plate imaging, registration is very accurate. Depending of the drying system installed on your DI (infrared or UV) you’ll need to select the right inks for perfect adherence on the lenticular plastic sheet. In general, lenticular sheets won’t require any “precoating” to be printed on a DI press (Presstek, Ryobi, Kodak, …)

Digital press printing

Although the print quality of digital presses is continually improving, there are still some issues with screening and sometimes with the high temperatures involved in producing digital prints. Especially the latter makes an accurate registration extremely difficult.

High resolution inkjet printing

Recent new developments in the large format and flatbed printing market have led to tremendous quality improvements. These high resolution printers are therefore very well suited for lenticular printing. These developments, combined with special lenticular sheets and the versatility of fast drying UV inks makes direct-to-lens flatbed lenticular printing an interesting option for many projects.

Can screen printing be used to produce lenticular images?
Lenticular printing is a HIGH RESOLUTION process as the lenticular sheet is magnifying the data that is printed to the backside of the lens. Unfortunately, screen printing does not allow the resolution required for a good quality. Printing at high resolutions like 400 LPI or even more, is simply impossible with the current screen printing technology.

Lenticular technology :

If you have more questions about lenticular please check www.dplenticular.com