Coated Paper is the paper that has had a finishing layer or coating applied during the manufacturing process to enhance its finish and printability. C1S is printing industry shorthand for "coated one side." Likewise, C2S means "coated two sides." Coated paper is often used for printing purposes as it offers sharp and complex images
There are two different types of coated: Gloss coated and Matt coat. They are two sides of a visually-appealing coin.
Gloss paper has an incredibly high shine and a smooth tactile feel. It’s a popular choice for leaflets and flyers because it enhances colours.
Matte is the opposite. It has a muted surface that refracts light subtly and evenly, reducing any glare. It also has a soft, textured feel to it.
Matte coated paper is very popular when used to create magazines, books and other larger copy-based print, as it lacks the reflective ability of gloss coated paper. In contrast to gloss, matte coated paper is also really easy to write on.
As the coated paper is perfect for printings. And how the differences go between coated paper and uncoated paper? Mainly in 3 aspects:
Smoothness:
First, we know paper is made from natural plant fibers. Take the grocery paper bags as a sample, the surface of it without coating. Even though the feeling is slight, you can still feel it is uneven. The basic theory of printing is to press the dye particles on the paper, and the dye will return to tiny powder after drying. Some cheap paper printing products usually lose color because the dye can not attach to the paper surface well. Especially in the screen printing case, the ink can not be pressed on paper’s gap and leads to the color vacant of the patterns.
For coated paper, due to the coating and calendering process, the compactness of the surface improved a lot and became more smooth. The dye powders can attach to the surface better and no fall; it can even satisfy a 60 lines/cm screen printing.
Brightness and Glossiness
The uncoated origin paper is brown, the natural wood fiber color. The manufacturers will add optical brightener into the paper stock to improve the brightness. However, it is still not ideal enough for printing. Coated paper has a great advantage in the brightness, which can clearly realize the original color of your design. Besides, we know the color by the light reflection. That is why the gloss-coated paper can show a much gayer color.
Better Ink Absorbing
The paper of most notebooks is uncoated. We are usually in a situation that the ink penetrates to the back or handwriting fuzzing during writing. That’s because there are many gaps in the paper fiber structure. For coated paper, the ink will permeate to the coating first, then reach the top of the paper to form a clear and sharp pattern. A compact coated surface has an outstanding performance on absorbing ink, will never let it fuzz or penetrate to the back.
