Have you ever received a digital print on glossy paper and thought “that’s not very glossy”? While there is a distinct difference between gloss coated and uncoated stocks, if you’re expecting a high sheen similar to a professionally developed photograph, you’re likely to be underwhelmed by the finish of gloss stock alone. That is why CEC offers Gloss Coating on our digitally printed color jobs upon request. Our gloss coating produces a photographic look and feel to the printed piece. It also achieves a higher gloss finish than UV-coating processes you may be familiar with.

If you don’t necessarily want a high-gloss finish but would like to help protect your printed piece against scratches (which can occur when a postcard goes through the mail, for example), we also offer Protection Coating. This finish isn’t much shinier than a standard printed piece, but does flood the page with a layer of clear toner which lays over the other printed elements. This clear coat offers a layer of protection against minor nicks and scratches common in transport and storage of printed pieces.

Another feature offered by the clear fifth-unit in our digital color press (in addition to the standard Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black units) is the ability to Spot Coat specific areas of a piece. While this coating won’t be a high-gloss finish, it does allow you to create elements (such as watermarks) that stand out without having to compromise the look of the design with added colors. One example of this would be a winter marketing campaign CEC ran. The design was simple and clean, a white card with our logo on the front panel. However, to spruce up the design we added snowflakes that printed in clear toner only. This created a card that had a much more elegant look than a plain white background and didn’t compromise the look of the piece with extra colored elements, such as using a light gray or blue for the snowflakes.

Unfortunately, this is difficult to represent on screen, but if you’d like to see samples of any of the special finishes discussed above, please contact a client service representative and ask for a free sample of our gloss, protection and spot coated finishes. Also check the Coating Options section of our Knowledge page for more information.

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