HYDROGRAPHIC PRINTING: AN OVERVIEW

Graphics technologies have made significant evolution with the time and achieved new horizons in the field of technology. Hydrographic printing is an innovative printing process. Hydrographic printing is a technique of applying two dimensional printed designs to complex 3D surfaces using water. Prior to this innovation, printing on such complex surfaces are done by chemically or electroplating techniques. A customized pattern can be printed simply onto complex surfaces. It is applicable where direct printing is not possible. In this technique, water-soluble transfer PVA film that carries a special ink is placed on the surface of water and ink is activated by reagent. Finally, the object is gradually immersed into the water through the floating ink film that stretches and wraps around the surface of object and adheres to objects. It is suitable for materials likes metal, plastic, ceramics, glass, and hard wood .In other words, it is an Industrial printing process that is printing on a product for either decorative or functional purpose. There are a few methods namely manually, automatically and computational for carrying out this printing process. This research paper presents a summary of the Hydrographic printing and describes the working of Hydrographic printing concisely