How much do you choke your underbase on auto press?

[Northland]

Does simpleseps automate that process for you?

Simpleseps features From their website:

SimpleSeps 4.0 SmartRIP

The Ultimate Color Separation and Halftone RIP for Screen Printers
SimpleSeps Smart RIP halftone and color separations software gives you more features and accuracy than any other screen printing halftone RIP software in the industry. Every possible feature and function screen printers could want is built into our easy to use system.

Converts designs to spot colors in seconds
Automated spot color separations
Halftone RIP directly in CorelDRAW
Interlocking halftones and separation options
Automated trapping, choking, spreads and gutters
Online video tutorial training

[Biverson]

Does simpleseps automate that process for you?

Yes and no. It does a lot of things automatically like: switch colors to Pantone, choking, trapping, spreading, gutters, dot gain comp., Lpi, regular halftones, interlocked halftones, and more but you have to tell it how you want all of that Sepped. There's still a great deal of user control. You also get a preview of what it will look like Sepped and can make adjustments.

Also, just found out my settings were at 1200 doing so I've been sepping chokes at 4px. I just went to 4 versus 2 as I didn't think I was getting enough choke - that explains why!

I create 99% of my artwork in Illustrator. I export as EPS then import to Corel and use Simple seps. Works great EXCEPT if you use transparency masks in Illustrator, which is akin to Corels Poweclip. I find it's faster even on really simple jobs. I Sepped a 4 color spot design today in 5 minutes. My favorite feature is being able to choke the underbase white, but not any white that is part of the design. I do a lot of school orders, some not more than 50 shirts and I don't want to have a UB and highlight white to setup for the job.


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[bryanprints]

Thanks for all the replies!  Lots of info to help with here.  We do have a tension meter and pay attentionish to what they're at.     I'll pay more attention to my squeegee pressure on each head.  I guess I never really thought about that a ton, just wanted to go as low as I could to clear the ink on that head. 

Thanks guys!

[Dottonedan]

For vector files, I am choking bases at 0.20- 0.30 (from the center line out). On some occasions, for small type on a pocket or left chest, I will add 0.2 to the top color.
For raster art, we are choking and trapping by about 1-2 pixels depending (using 300ppi) as a target. We re-size the art a lot (I don't get the art at 100% of size all of the time). Usually reducing or enlarging by about 20% or so.  I did one just yesterday at 1200ppi where I choked the base by 4 pixels and it looked very tight.

Tony feels it's a little too tight but it's working and the art is looking better.

I try to choke tight, because our inks seem to be too translucent for my taste. This then adds some time to alignment. Its already not much at all,  (like microing in) taking about 1 min more per color. Otherwise, if I did a .5 (4pixel@300ppi) choke or trap, with opaque inks, we would have a more efficient setup time like 2 min per color.

[domineight]

0.3mm outside stroke. That must me a smidge under 1 point (0.85pt). Thats plenty ordinarily. I like to make life easy though...
Sometimes I knock it back to 0.25mm or 50/50 my choke/spread.

I might go a little higher if I'm doing some big chunky print on a hoodie but 0.3mm covers pretty much everything unless I start doubting the fine detail in a left breast print or so.

I find it a nice happy middle ground between getting it done, staying consistent, and looking pretty sharp and clean.

[TCT]

We have always used 0.3pt for a choke. No clue why a random number like 0.3, think I just used it one day and continued. Then told our artist that is what we use.