Film

[inkman996]

As CTS becomes more popular and saturated in the industry I wonder if quality for film will drop because of the drop in demand.

Or will it be more like the transfer industry and the influx of DTG? They had to step up their game to remain competitive.

Good point!

[mk162]

I think you will still see a ton of shops using film because frankly manual shops would buy an auto before CTS, home shops are the same way.  And of course, some folks won't give it up until the consumables are no longer made.

[squeezee]

The quality of film does vary, we sell Agfa SelectJet plus our own brand.  We often see imperfections in our own film (and it's one of the better ones) but the Agfa - never.  We haven't had a roll returned in about 10 years of selling it.

I spent 17 years in Autotype R&D developing coatings and there are loads of things that can go wrong when coating a web.

[inkbrigade]

I measured it few months back. My 50% read 53% or so on the film. It read 72% on the shirt!

How did you measure this?

[blue moon]

I measured it few months back. My 50% read 53% or so on the film. It read 72% on the shirt!

How did you measure this?

betalog 130 densitometer. It reads both transmissive and reflective. 'will gladly read your films and shirts if you'd like!

[squeezee]

betalog 130 densitometer. It reads both transmissive and reflective. 'will gladly read your films and shirts if you'd like!

Still measures in the visible spectrum though.

[blue moon]

betalog 130 densitometer. It reads both transmissive and reflective. 'will gladly read your films and shirts if you'd like!

Still measures in the visible spectrum though.

unfortunately, yes! I wish I had the funds to get  UV densitometer, but for this will have to do. The screens are actually looking pretty good, so while betalog is reading visible light, it does provide some information (which is better than none and probably pretty close to the actual UV readings).

[squeezee]

If you are linearising then uv and visible are equivalent because a 50% dot will stop 50% of the 100% value.  So the 130 will be fine, it won't tell you whether your film stops 99.5% or 99.7% of the uv spectrum.

[blue moon]

If you are linearising then uv and visible are equivalent because a 50% dot will stop 50% of the 100% value.  So the 130 will be fine, it won't tell you whether your film stops 99.5% or 99.7% of the uv spectrum.

yes, in the reflective mode it works right, it's the transmissive that only reads the regular light.

[screenxpress]

Did I read that the non-WP was actually better?

[squeezee]

for what?

[Frog]

Did I read that the non-WP was actually better?

Do you mean read in this thread? What I got from it is that boiled down, this thread pretty much covered opinions and experiences and research concluding that;

1. Obviously, clear, non-wp film has a lower d-min and transmits more light through the non-image area than the "frosty" wp films. The lower the d-max (the opacity or better, the uv blocking ability of the image area) the more important this issue could be.
A high enough d-max can minimize or negate this.

2. Some folks are reporting inconsistencies and/or edge spreading, or glowing (blurring?) over time with some wp films (and some ink combinations?).

3. One possible ideal solution may be non-wp film and a dye-pigment hybrid ink.

[screenxpress]

From MK162 -

OK, so I tested WP and non-WP.  I forgot to turn off my linearization tools, which is fine actually but I tested 20-80% and with the non-WP i was dead on for everything, with the WP films, I was 20% high on 20, 10% on 40, 7% on 60 and 5% on 80.  So clearly there is more gain on these than the non-wp.  This is strictly on the film, not on the print.  I turned off my dot gain compensation so I could get an accurate reading and know what I was shooting for.


Maybe I didn't understand the results here.  Quite understandable - 

[blue moon]

From MK162 -

OK, so I tested WP and non-WP.  I forgot to turn off my linearization tools, which is fine actually but I tested 20-80% and with the non-WP i was dead on for everything, with the WP films, I was 20% high on 20, 10% on 40, 7% on 60 and 5% on 80.  So clearly there is more gain on these than the non-wp.  This is strictly on the film, not on the print.  I turned off my dot gain compensation so I could get an accurate reading and know what I was shooting for.


Maybe I didn't understand the results here.  Quite understandable - 

the way I read this is that the WP film had a lot more gain.
this is probably related to the difference between the two.

from what I understand:
regular film is just that. Plain piece of film that takes the ink on the surface (it builds up).
WP film has a coating and it uses the capillary effect to draw the ink into it. My guess is that the capillary effect caused some of the ink to spread out rather than just into the film only.

This is probably film type related as my readings on the WP film are within few percent. What kind of film was it?

[Frog]

I am pretty sure that this particular issue will vary with type of film, brand of film, type and brand of ink, RIP, and, of course, settings.
I also wonder if the d-max, in this instance was greater along with the dot gain.