Glossary

Like any industry, ours uses terms that may be unfamiliar to you. This will help you make sense of these terms.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

lacquer
A solvent-based solution containing modifying agents that gives a glossy, durable finish when applied to a substrate.
lenticular printing
A technology in which a lenticular lens is used to produce images with an illusion of depth, or the ability to change or move as the image is viewed from different angles.
letter fold
Folding a printed piece horizontally at least twice, in the same vertical direction, thereby capturing the first fold in the second. The same effect is achieved by rolling the sheet horizontally into a tube shape and flattening the tube by creasing the two horizontal edges.
letterpress
A printing method where the areas to be inked are higher than the non-printing areas. The inked areas are then placed in contact with the material to be printed, transferring the ink from the raised areas to the substrate. A similar technique is used with rubber stamps. See also: Flexography; relief plate; relief printing.
letterset
See dry offset.
line art
A drawing rendered in only 100% black and 100% white, with no gray areas. (e.g., black lines drawn on white substrate or a vector graphic produced by a computer drawing, CAD, or illustration application.) See also: bitmap; object-oriented; raster; vectors.
linen tester
A magnifying lens mounted in a small frame that, when placed on the material to be viewed, stands at a height equal to the focal length of the lens. Able to be folded into a small, flat package that easily fits in a pocket, the linen tester is often used in quality control to view small details of an image. See also: loupe; magnifier.
lithography
An technique were the printing plate's image area is specially treated to accept only ink and the nonimage area is specially treated to only accept water. See also: dry offset; gravure; offset gravure; offset printing.
live matter
Refers to the type characters of piece to be printed.
loupe
An optical device containing a precision ruler used to observe very small details. See also: linen tester; magnifier.
lowercase
A term applied to letters of the alphabet that are not capitalized.
lupe
See loupe.