1st time sim process customer

[Dottonedan]

This was done for a customer who has never printed sim process before. In fact, from what I remember, he was not very familiar with printing halftones before, let alone sim process or process. He can correct me if I'm wrong on that.

So he calls me and tells me about this job and explains that he'd like to print his own sim process jobs from now on. I start thinking, "So you don't do it now. Ok. This can go with way.  It can end up being one of the fun customers that have a door opened up for them....or it can be a customer that fights you every step of the way. It happens both ways. I don't know why people come to someone because they don't know how themselves yet, but then they fight you on it when you tell them what they should do. Thankfully, this customer was eager and excited. He followed every step to the (tee). :0

He emailed me back and said, "Ya know, I had questioned the color we were using at first but went right on through and followed your directions step by step and the Customer loved it!

7 colors on colored garments.
305 mesh 50-55lpi halftone, 22.5 degrees screen angle, ellipse dot shape,

1 Light blue-ish Gray (I forget the pms color). The original art seemed more minty blueish gray in the sky and most other lighter areas.

2 Yellow
3 Red
4 Blue
5 teal
6 Black
7 Top white

Now, it could have been better had we used more colors or had we more experience and had the separator been with them on site when they sampled it. All of that improves a print. Right out the gate, first time (this was a fantastic result, I think. After seeing the end product I was very happy to see that he did so well with it. Had I been on site, we could have adjusted some something here and there but over all, looks real good. I would have improved on that area at the bottom to add just a bit more diamond shape contrast. It was already very subtle but we have ways of making that more defined.

[squeezee]

Nice, but I think that the horses are running into the rails

[tpitman]

Dan, you generally just furnish the sepped files, correct? Not the films? Have you ever thought about furnishing film to give you a bit more control over the final product, wet film from an imagesetter ideally?
At any rate, I think the print shown, especially for a first timer, is very good, more so considering the fact that it's from a watercolor. Those subtle gradients are tough to hold in film and on a stencil.

[Dottonedan]

Dan, you generally just furnish the sepped files, correct? Not the films? Have you ever thought about furnishing film to give you a bit more control over the final product, wet film from an imagesetter ideally?
At any rate, I think the print shown, especially for a first timer, is very good, more so considering the fact that it's from a watercolor. Those subtle gradients are tough to hold in film and on a stencil.

I don't know how much it would be as a positive impact on the business. I get 1 out of 20 new customers asking if I provide films also. Of those, 70% are just asking our of curiosity as a back up. When I say I can, for an additional fee for XX.XX amount, they say they often can get them for the same price or less somewhere. They are referring to the price of digital films but don't realize it.  THe day of the true imagessetters are gone. Now, If I did offer that service, maybe it might bring in more people than I know of. It seems to be a big risk. An image setter is very expensive and very hard to find. I talked with Mark Coudray about this a few months ago and it seems screen print industry film houses have fallen off the map. We can't get them serviced anymore. If we do, you need to take out a small loan to get it repaired.

Maybe a top of the line digital printer would be more cost effective. With that, I would know that the seps I provide are coming out as good as intended. That does take out one other variable. It's a great suggestions. One I've been considering for years but never pulled the trigger. I guess I still haven't see that big of a demand to warrant it.