An Impression by Any Other Name...

How do you define “impression?” Printers have been arguing about the definition of an impression for as long as we’ve had devices that put marks on pieces of paper. Longer, actually.

The earliest known forms of printing date back to 3000 B.C. and involved rolling an “impress” into clay tablets (according to Wikipedia). Modern printing continues to be based on the technology of bringing a substrate into contact with an image and somehow transferring—or pressing—that image onto the sheet. Some printing texts define “impression” as the amount of pressure that the press sheet receives, and controlling the amount of pressure required to create the optimum image is a critical component of press operation.