screen printing > Screen Making

Emulsion for LED?

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farmboygraphics:
Trying to dial in my new LED light and having a bugger of a time exposing dots under 6%.
Currently using Ulano Orange 1 and 1 sharp side on 300 mesh 55 lpi
Maybe I just need to spend the weekend making screens until I find it? Ugh.
Any recommendations on emulsion?
Edit: printing plastisol

Rockers:
We like this emulsion from CCI
https://ccidom.com/prochem-reg-lxp-l-e-d-optimized-emulsion

and we like this Ulano emulsion even more
https://www.ulano.com/trifecta

StinkyDaddy:
I'm using Trifecta and like it.

Dottonedan:

--- Quote from: farmboygraphics on November 01, 2024, 10:23:46 AM ---
Trying to dial in my new LED light and having a bugger of a time exposing dots under 6%.
Currently using Ulano Orange 1 and 1 sharp side on 300 mesh 55 lpi
Maybe I just need to spend the weekend making screens until I find it? Ugh.
Any recommendations on emulsion?
Edit: printing plastisol

--- End quote ---

To me, I don't know why people don't just use the same emulsion they have been and adjust their halftone output. I mean, if what you are not getting is only 5%, 4% and 3% and knowing that 3% is the most feasible small dot to achieve, then you are only talking about adjusting between 7 and 3%. In the curves in the RIP, make your 3% a 6 and slowly ramp up and level out apples to apples at 10%.  I mean, who's going to turn your order down for holding too much in the highlights?
 
This is what shops do or should do, when they have a weak or not so strong of an exposure unit like flo bulbs. You don't fight the bulb or change emulsions but compensate in the output so that what your bulb does hold, is there. Like taking a 65lpi down to a 55 in order to hold more small dots. Or even a 55 down to a 50.  Or beefing up your small dots (in the adjustment) at the 10% range and below so that you can still hold a 55 or 65 across the board but the smallest, hardest dots are more able to be held.

It's true that it's possible to hold (inkjet) film down to the 3% dot or even 2% as Pierre had done in some of his SGIA and ISS award winning prints (when fully calibrated) using a densitometer, and people use densitometer results as a gauge of "true halftones".  But remember, or be aware, that it's comparing/referencing that tone against the other tones (in that particular output devise).

The 5% tone (dot size) in a 55lpi with inkjet (from one brand film printer) will not be the same size 5% tone (dot size) in a 55lpi dot when compared to a different wet ink film printer or when compared to A 5% tone (dot size) in a 55lpi of a SAATI laser dot.  And again, the 3% dot size of a true wet film imagesetter will not be the same size at the 5% dot of a laser.  Sure, we are talking microns in difference, but literally not the exact same.  That quality is all based on type of output and device output resolution. As we already know, Emulsion type is only one factor in holding small dots.


I once had to create a custom curve adjustment for all seps for a SAATI laser customer who could not hold anything below 20% dots using their standard install default settings. At that level, accommodating for losing below 20% still did not provide great results since much was finagled in the finer details but they were able to get the jobs done. They (SAATI) have since changed that and now custom calibrate to all shops who request it. It takes a few days longer. I think maybe even if they do not request it, it's now calibrated to hold 3% in a full 65lpi.  I guess they imagined that most shops would not need that or not really do full 65lpi tonal range?  But at any rate, that's supposedly fixed now. But there I go, drifting off track.

farmboygraphics:

--- Quote from: Dottonedan on November 03, 2024, 12:54:58 PM ---
--- Quote from: farmboygraphics on November 01, 2024, 10:23:46 AM ---
Trying to dial in my new LED light and having a bugger of a time exposing dots under 6%.
Currently using Ulano Orange 1 and 1 sharp side on 300 mesh 55 lpi
Maybe I just need to spend the weekend making screens until I find it? Ugh.
Any recommendations on emulsion?
Edit: printing plastisol

--- End quote ---

To me, I don't know why people don't just use the same emulsion they have been and adjust their halftone output. I mean, if what you are not getting is only 5%, 4% and 3% and knowing that 3% is the most feasible small dot to achieve, then you are only talking about adjusting between 7 and 3%. In the curves in the RIP, make your 3% a 6 and slowly ramp up and level out apples to apples at 10%.  I mean, who's going to turn your order down for holding too much in the highlights?
 
This is what shops do or should do, when they have a weak or not so strong of an exposure unit like flo bulbs. You don't fight the bulb or change emulsions but compensate in the output so that what your bulb does hold, is there. Like taking a 65lpi down to a 55 in order to hold more small dots. Or even a 55 down to a 50.  Or beefing up your small dots (in the adjustment) at the 10% range and below so that you can still hold a 55 or 65 across the board but the smallest, hardest dots are more able to be held.

--- End quote ---

Dan, I appreciate the response.  I had a feeling this is what I needed to do, but to be honest, I don't know how or where to do this. I'm going to say that all these years I've printed halftones I've
just had dumb luck that it's worked out. A lot of jobs this year are leaning towards either sim or process, everyone wants full color now. I've never needed to mess much with curves and levels to get where I need to be. When you say to "beef up the dots in the adjustments" I have no idea where you're referring to. I'm sure I sound like a first year newbie, but I've always just let any sep software I was using do the heavy lifting.  I've run through countless youtube videos, but all of them are under the assumption that the viewer isn't someone with their head up their backside.

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