Printing is known for tirage (French for “pulling”), which refers to the number of sheets pulled off a mother sheet during one printing process, eventually becoming printed sheets from multiple mother sheets. Tirage may also refer to how many printed sheets are produced from an arrangement of mother sheets.
Tirage or edition size refers to the number of prints produced from one plate or negative. Limiting this production runs the risk of diluting its value. Hence, it should be limited so each print in an edition becomes an individual work of art and a valuable collector’s item.
Its bed size determines the tirage in printing presses; that is, how much paper can fit on a single sheet fed into it. A standard size among modern presses is 50×70 cm (20×28 inches), yielding 500 sheets in one run.
Offset lithography uses tirage to refer to the number of sheets that can be pulled from a certain amount of mother sheets in one run. For instance, if an offset press with a bed size of 50×70 cm can print 500 sheets, its tirage would equal this figure.
Tirage refers to the quantity of printed sheets produced from a given number of mother sheets. For instance, an offset lithography press with a bed size of 50×70 cm that prints 500 sheets per run would produce 500 tirage sheets in its run.
Tirage is an integral component of printing that ensures accurate registration of colors and does not distort or distort an image in print. By employing tirage, printers can produce high-quality prints that match up perfectly with their original images.
