Ok, Accurip users and fades

[hoogie]

When printing fades from AI, in my art the shade is from 100% down to 0% the question is to you all, is there a way from the accurip to knockout anything from 95% and above and 5% and below? I'm not holding from those percentages on my screen, so I'd like to give it a cleaner look? Or do I have to do it from AI...and if so is there an easy way of doing it? I'm a Coral user...switching to AI more and more...thanks for any help

[blue moon]

When printing fades from AI, in my art the shade is from 100% down to 0% the question is to you all, is there a way from the accurip to knockout anything from 95% and above and 5% and below? I'm not holding from those percentages on my screen, so I'd like to give it a cleaner look? Or do I have to do it from AI...and if so is there an easy way of doing it? I'm a Coral user...switching to AI more and more...thanks for any help

short answer, no. All the adjustments you can make will just make the bigger dots smaller so you will still have small dots (if you adjust the curve to stat at 5%, what used to be 6% will now be 1% so you will still have small dots).

pierre

[GaryG]

I have wondered this too-
How does one set the tonal compression then?
Preventing the saw tooth effect on 5% and under.

Thx

[blue moon]

I have wondered this too-
How does one set the tonal compression then?
Preventing the saw tooth effect on 5% and under.

Thx

no quick answer. We normally start at 5% so there is no edge. When it can't be done, you'll have to get creative and add a color or something. . .

pierre

[Dottonedan]

Also, you may not be using the best choice of halftone for the mesh you are using. If losing small dots, you can do 2 things.

1, lower the lpi to what "really works best" on that mesh. Take mesh and devide by 5. That will give you the best chance if holding smallest dots.

2, for higher mesh counts, some people give a wide range of coating thicknesses as a required. For high mesh, it should be the same thickness no matter how you coat. The differences are (round or sharp, slow or fast).   Some who coat 2/1 will be coating sharp and fast while a 1:1 will be sharp but slower.

Bottom line is, if it's too thick, your ink will not flow easily into the smallest holes, especially on high mesh.

[Sbrem]

I have a really old (20 years) book called Photoshop in Black and White which explains this, though truthfully, I have not fully explored it. Open your curves tool; there are 3 eyedroppers there, shadow (left) midtone (middle) and highlight (right). Double click on the shadow eyedropper and the color picker opens; in the bottom right window "K" enter 95 and click OK. Then double click the highlight eyedropper, and in the same "K" box, enter 5. This sets your tools. Now to try it out, open a picture and convert to grayscale. Open the Curves dialog, choose the highlight eyedropper, and click on the whitest part of the image, this will force white to 5%; do the same with the shadow eyedropper, but click on the darkest part of the image, and that will force it to 95. Here, I use 85 to 90, as I haven't completely settled on it yet... click OK to close the Curves dialog and go to print. Your white will be 5% and your shadow at 95%, provided your printer is calibrated, no pure white, and no pure black... at least that's what I know. Pierre was right of course with his explanation simply moving the curves points around, you will still get dots below 5% that are hard to print...

Steve

If someone knows a way to do it in Illustrator, I'm all ears...

[3Deep]

I know this post is old but, using the desaturate  tool instead of using grayscale with curves with will retain more of the color info and possible giving you the halftones your are looking to print, but your still going to need to use the correct mesh count and lpi.