screen printing > Separations

Scaling down a DCS

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JBLUE:
Heres one for you guys. I have really never had the need to scale down a DCS file that significantly. Once brought over to Illustrator if I shrink it down to say 60% of the original sepped file.  Will it still hold a 1 or 2 pixel choke for the base? I have always just sepped two files instead of scaling it so that would be a timesaver if it still held the choke information as its scaled down. Thanks

ebscreen:
I would recommend against it. Scaling does weird things to raster files, and if it's already sepped it might blur your edges etc. I always sep raster at the size it will print.

ZooCity:
I figure the whole purpose of .dcs is so that, once saved nobody can screw with it.  Scaling significantly (or at all) might well be considered trying to screw with it.   Whoever got the file to you shouldn't have a problem scaling the original and re-saving. 

Then again, I haven't mastered the file type yet.  I get real damn close every time but there's always something wrong with one of the plates- usually some b.s. like a solid or 98% fill area getting a 40% looking fill out of the rip -and I have to go back and rehab that color.  So I could be dead wrong and maybe it's kool and gang to scale .dcs files in Illy....but, pretty much what eb said. 

Denis Kolar:
If you save the file with certain settings like LPI, scaling would change the size of the dot.
If you save the sep with 55lpi, when you scale it 60%, would that make the LPI to be somewhere in the range of 90?

Sbrem:
If you reduce the file dimensions, you also reduce the choke. Illustrator controls the halftones, unless you converted each channel to bitmap/halftone mode first, but I don't see why one would do that for a DCS. The 2 pixel choke is a "physical", so to speak, thing, so if you reduce the file to 60%, that just goes along with it, down to a 1.2 pixel choke. Set your line count (LPI) in the Illustrator and print it out.

Steve

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