| Safelight | The special darkroom lamp used to create minimal illumination without fogging sensitised materials. |
| Scaling | Determining the proper size of an image to be reduced or enlarged to fit a specific area. |
| Scanner | An electronic device used in the making of colour and tone-corrected separations of images. Also used in a different form for the input to digital manipulation devices. |
| SCK | Super Calendered Kraft. Kraft paper having been passed through a series of smooth calender rolls in order to compact the fibres and smooth the surface. |
| Score | To make an indentation, or fold line, in material to facilite folding or tearing as a secondary operation. |
| Screen | 1. Halftone screen (dot representation of a continuous tone image). 2. Silkscreen (a stencil printing process). 3. Computer display. |
| Screen mesh count | A measure of the number of openings per cm or inch. |
| Screened print | A print with a halftone screen made from a screened negative of by diffusion transfer. |
| Scribe lines | The fine lines scribed on the surface of a plate cylinder as a guide to mounting. |
| Scuff | The action of rubbing a surface against another surface. Can be used to replicate the agitation that may occur during transit. |
| Sealer | A coating designed to prevent the passage of a substance through a substrate. Barrier coat. |
| Secondary colours | Any colour produced by mixing two of the primary colours. |
| Secondary label | The non-primary label applied to the container to support the more promotional label which is designed to attract initial attention. |
| Security label | A label which contains one or more protective attributes. |
| Self-adhesive label | A label manufactured using a material coated with pressure sensitive adhesive. May be of paper or filmic materials. |
| Semi-rotary press | A press where the image matter is retained in a flat format and the substrate is brought into contact by means of a roller action. |
| Sensor | A mechanical or electronic device used for detecting register and alignment. |
| Separator plate | A thin section, made of metal or nylon, over which the backing carrying the labels is pulled. The effect of this is that the self-adhesive labels are separated from the backing prior to being applied. |
| Serif | The short crossline or curl like terminals at the extemes of the strokes of Roman lettering. |
| Service temperature | The temperature range over which the adhesive properties of the applied label remain substantially unchanged over a prolonged period of time. |
| Shaft | The centre support of a roller or cylinder on the press. |
| Shear test | A method of separating adhesive bonded materials by forcing the interfaces to slide over each other. FINAT test No.8. |
| Shelf life | The storage time during which a material may be expected to retain its essential properties under specified conditions. |
| Shellac | An alcohol soluble natural resin used in ink formulations. |
| Shore hardness | A method of determining the hardness of a compressible material. Applies to photopolymer plates and non metal rollers on the printing press. |
| Shrink label | A label printed on filmic material, formed into a tube, placed over the container, and shrunk to fit tightly. |
| Shrinkage | The reduction in size in any dimension. |
| Silicone coat weight | A measure of the weight of cured silicone applied to a square metre of surface area. |
| Silicone coating | A unique polymer system which can be a very effective release coating. |
| Silicone misting | See misting. |
| Silicone release coating | The cured coating applied to the protective substrate which permits a temorary key to the protective substrate but easy removal just prior to the final application of the tacky aderent to the ultimate container or surface. |
| Silicone strain test | See malachite test. |
| Siliconising | The coating procedures used to apply and cure a coating of silicone to the paper or filmic liner or protective sheet. See silicone release coating. |
| Silk screen printing | See screen printing |
| Single pass | Material passing once through any item of production equipment. For some effects and constructions additional passes may be required. |
| Sleeve label | A filmic label in tube form which is placed over the article to be labelled in the form of a tube and heated to a shrink fit. |
| Slip additive | Used in inks to improve the slip or lubricative properties. |
| Slit back | Slits placed in the release line to facilitate its removal by hand. |
| Slitter | An item of equipment which cuts the reel in the web direction and rewinds the divided reel into separate reels. |
| Slitting | Dividing a single web into multples by means of sharpened wheels, or blades, mounted acoss the working width of the press. |
| Small caps | Letters in the form of capitals but of about the same size as the lower case elements of the font. Used for emphasis and display purposes. |
| Smoothness | The evenness of the substrate surface making it ideal for all the printing processes. |
| Smudge resistance | The resistance of a printed ink to smearing |
| Snap-off | The distance between the stencil and material surface in screen printing. |
| Soft dot | A halftone dot which prints with an excessive graduated halo instead of a sharp edge. |
| Solid | 1. State of matter, not fluid. 2. Not grained. 3. Spatial shape. 4. Printed surface of some size (not lines, type, or screened image), a continuous homogeneous ink layer. |
| Solids content | The percentage by weight of non-volatile components in an ink, coating, or adhesive. |
| Solvent | A chemical substance capable of thinning or reducing the viscosity of ink, coating, or adhesive. A solvent is a liquid which dissolves another substance. |
| Solvent free | The absence of any solvent in an ink, coating, or adhesive. |
| Solvent resistance | The ability of a material to resist the action of specified organic liquids under specified conditions. |
| Spectrum | The complete range of colours in the rainbow, from short wavelengths (blue) through to long wavelengths (red). |
| Splice | Connection made usually with adhesive tape to obtain a continuous web of material from two separate lengths. A label printed over a splice will form part of the waste. |
| Spot colour | The addition of an extra colour, often in an isolated area, within the total design may be a line or tonal representation. |
| Spot glue | Applying adhesive in one or more spots on the moving web. |
| Spreadsheet | Programmes that create columns and rows of numbers and other data that may be organised, formulated and mathematically constructed. |
| Sprocket holes | Traction holes punched along the edges of the web of labels. Sometimes required for feeding labels through an overprinter. |
| Squeegee | Tool used, either by hand or mechanically, to force ink through the unprotected mesh areas in screen process printing. |
| Stack press | A printing press having the printing units supported in the form of horizontal stacks. |
| Stacker | An item of equipment which when mounted following a sheeter unit stacks the sheeted labels into specified quantities. |
| Static | Electrical charges generated in handling materials which causes them to cling together. Can jump to humans or equipment causing electric shock or may cause fire if solvent vapour is present. |
| Static eliminator | A device for running static electricty to earth thereby neutralizing it. |
| Steel-to-steel cutting | When the die cutting operation is required to penetrate through the layers making up the laminate and the peak of the cutting bevel may come into contact with the hardened steel anvil. |
| Step & repeat | The action of producing a number of images onto film, and subsequently plate, permitting the image to be printed more than one at a time thus speeding up production by reducing press running time. |
| Stepped anvil | An anvil used for rotary die cutting that has been ground, usually in steps of around 1/100th mm., to permit the extended use of a die. May be in plus steps or minus steps. |
| Stickyback | Refers to the double sided adhesive material used for mounting plates on a print cylinder. |
| Stochastic screening | A form of electronic dot generation performed by screening algorithms. Frequency modulated or FM screening produces almost continuous tone images with very small dots of equal size and variable spacing. |
| Storage life | See shelf life. See Pot life. |
| Stringing | A condition which can occur when rubber based adhesives are used. The adhesive fails to separate cleanly with the indentation of the cutter blade. Sometimes a cutter blade having a broader bevel can overcome the problem. |
| Strip coating | The techique of applying coatings of silicone and/or adhesive in stripes in the machine direction. |
| Stripping (origination) | 1. Method used by a layout artist to place the components, graphics and text, in place prior to plate making. |
| Stripping (waste laminate) | The act of removing the waste from around and between the labels once the web has passed through the die cutting stations. |
| Sublimable dyes | Dyes that have the capacity to move from a solid state to gas and back to a solid without passing through a liquid phase. Some off-press colour proofing systems use such dyes. |
| Subsequent adhesion | The second stage of adhesion which takes place once the tacky adhesive and the container surface have been in contact for a specified time. This time period may be varied my modification of the adhesive formulation. |
| Substance | See grammage. |
| Substrate | A generic term used to describe the laminate, or the face material. May be printed or plain. |
| Subtractive primaries | Yellow, magenta and cyan, the hues used for process colour printing inks. |
| Suitability for purpose | BSI and ISO denotes a standard of quality and refers to traceability. The quality might be fine but is the item suitable for the intended purpose in addition to being of sound quality. |
| Super calendered Kraft | See SCK. |
| Supercalender | Calender rolls, alternated with resilient rolls and standing free from the papermaking machine. Applies an extra smooth finish to the paper. |
| Surface hardening | The practice of hardening rotary cutting dies to provide a hard cutting edge whilst leaving the body of the tool soft. |
| Surface treatment | See primer, corona treatment, etc., |
| Synthetic art | Software programmes which facilitate the creation of illustrations which may be sized according to requirements. |
| Synthetic rubber | Elastomer manufactured by a chemical process as distinguished from the use of natural rubber obtained from trees. |
| Synthetics | Materials that are manufactured from various chemicals not from natural fibres. |