Printing

Print quality can be affected by four surface characteristics of the substrate.

Absorbency
This property relates to the ability of ink to penetrate paper substrates. Ink which dry by absorption must be quickly drawn into the substrate to avoid smearing and offsetting. The substrate must have sufficient hold out so that ink does not penetrate too deep, resulting in a "washes out" appearance to the printed image
.
Moisture Resistance
Paper substrates must have a sufficient degree of moisture resistance so they do not weaken or dimensionally change when printed with water based ink systems. Resulting problems can include registration issues or finished label curl
.
Reflectance
Reflectance is the ability of a material to reflect or return light energy. This property is critical in bar code applications where the background must reflect a given percentage of the light energy emitted by a scanner. Different wavelengths of light may respond differently on the same substrate.

Strength
Paper substrates must possess sufficient internal strength to overcome ink tack attraction to the printing plate and pull the ink itself without splitting