There's no film involved at all. You can print as little as a quantity of one. Seriously, your print runs can be low, even for full-color printing, and the costs won't make you blanch. With traditional offset printing, consumers tend to print far more than they'll ever need. Yet many people waste 30 percent of what they print.
Lead times are much shorter with digital printing.
You can print different versions of your piece, like a brochure or a newsletter, for different markets and test out their effectiveness before you settle on one look. And every printed piece has different information to help make it more personal, more attractive, and more effective. So print 2000 brochures every quarter and update the copy, instead of printing 8000 brochures per year and living with outdated and incorrect information. With digital printing, you can reduce or even eliminate waste by only printing what you need. Digital printing may not serve all of your printing needs, but it sure comes in handy for small runs and quick turnaround jobs.