 The principle of ink transfer in the relief printing is similar to that of the offset printing, only the watering section is excluded. Additionally, the printing form, having the shape of the relief form (as in the flexography, only made of harder polymer) and applying ink directly onto the printing material, is also different. Ink dosing is performed by adjusting pressure of the ink-removing knife and by changing the thickness of the ink layer on the steel ink-transfer roll.
The main advantage of this process as comparing to the offset printing is the fact, that the printing length (step) may be easily changed by replacing the printing roll with the one of different diameter. Due to this feature, the relief printing has become more popular than the offset printing for self-adhesive label production, nevertheless, the world-market share of this printing method is now decreasing by ~6% per year. As in the case of the offset printing, the relief printing sets higher requirements to qualifications of printing equipment operators, additionally, machine adjusting takes more time and spoils more material as compared to flexographic or intaglio printing. | 
