For those of you who can hold them in your mesh, I say "Make use of your misfit 1-3% dots"
What I find myself taking advantage of at times is really pushing it in most peoples opinion. Mark Coudray points out that you can hold a 4% on a 55lpi on the average 305/34 This "ability to hold" is referring to the
consistency. The point where the halftone now drops off or gets "clipped" is at any dot equal to a 3% or lower (that lands on a mesh thread).
Now, this is the area that I find interesting. In this mesh, you do get a certain number of dots that pass that are indeed lower than 4%. These dots are printable. They are being held in the screen and ink flows trough. It's just that maybe 80% of them get blocked by that darned old mesh thread. What about that extra 10 or 20%? The misfits so to speak. Those show up on the print. (That jaggie hit and miss pattern in a soft fade to nothing can show this.
I say, make use of it.
This "pattern' of negative mesh thread made up of tiny dots can actually be used. It's far fetched, but fun. Just using 1 color does not do all that much. For example, take a white ink on high mesh like a top white and print a 1-3% dot on a black garment. You will see them. Given enough span and they make a TONE. Yes, it's got a pattern in it but no more visually irritating than a rosette pattern. Again, just using something like a white ink on a black garment is not that exciting. In fact, it's sort of annoying to look at and see this unwanted "pattern" due to the mesh threads blocking most of it.
Here is where it's beneficial. You can take that pattern of 1-3% dots of red and combine that pattern with 1-3% dots of blue...and 1-3% dots of Yellow...etc. and actually come up with a visually different shade of color. This is similar to obtaining a very soft pastel color in water colors. When you have 3-5 colors thrashing about in a print sequence at 1-3% on each, all of those "mesh thread patterns" will begin to go away. With such as small sized dot and many of them coming together, all you begin to see is a color shade.
In a way, it's just another example of an artist making use of whats available and getting the most out of it. Like when your in art school and running low on money, you start to do more paintings in a single color (to save money). You might start to practice on old notebook covers and sheets of plywood around the house.
Been there.
A single dot of yellow ink is hardly noticeable on a sheet of white paper. If you set another one 1/64th " apart and repeat that over and over again till you come up to a 5" square, you will eventually begin to see a tone of color that is quite noticeable and different than the white paper. Times that by 2, 3 or 4 other colors and you can see various shades of very light color. The more colors you use, the more they also start to lose that unwanted negative mesh thread pattern that covers up 70% of the dots. Think of this as a 1% mist of red ink being sprayed over a sheet of white paper from your digital printer. These dots are measured in picoliters. I read somewhere that the average "resolution is around 8-12 picoliters in size per spray splat is an average printer. Thats probably less than half the size of a grain of sand. If you set enough of those next to each other, they can create color shades.
Again, it doesn't look good by itself, but combined with 3 or more colors at the same %'s, it begins to form a usable color. Now, how much that is usable and how effective that is to do, is determined by you and your interest in doing so.
Sure, it's not for everyone and not practical in 99% of the jobs but it's fun to play and push the limits isn't it?
