Simulated process: image getting pixelated when separated

[jbelanger86]

I need to print these cub scout shirts and im really having problems. Because of the amount of colors I have been trying to pull it into Separation Studio as a TIFF at 300dpi, but as soon as I pull the clear crisp image into SS, It becomes all grainy!! What should I be doing differently?
 
It has to be done on a forest green shirt, so 4 color is not an option. I just want all the edges to look good. Im printing these for my pack, im the cubmaster so if I need to change the design I can.


PS. I did a sep studio print once before and I had lots of pixels in the print, it looked ok, but not the quality that I would like to produce. I attached an image of that one too. The one im working on is the Pack 603 ones though.

[blue moon]

not sure what's causing this, probably related to not using an anti-aliasing filter during import. See if it's available in the software.

In the end, none of that will be visible on the shirt. The substrate will create jaggies that are much bigger than the SS output.

pierre

[jbelanger86]

can you expand on what anti aliasing is?

You think that the choppy edges wont be seen?

[blue moon]

can you expand on what anti aliasing is?

You think that the choppy edges wont be seen?

http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/18531/can-the-3d-viewport-be-set-to-draw-smooth-anti-aliased-wireframe

no, you will not see it on the shirt.

pierre

[JBLUE]

The reason why you are getting that banding is because the way Illustrator renders the gradients compared to Photoshop or other raster programs. Some of that banding will show up on the shirt because it is going to be in the base screen. There is no real fix for it except to get a little tricky and hand tweak some the gradient areas. Print out the base film and look at what you need to tweak and go from there. If you see the banding on the film its going to be on the screen and the shirt.

Since you have the native file you can try opening it in PS at 600 dpi. Duplicate the main layer a couple of times and merge it together. Give it the slightest blur and then sep it again. Go real easy on the blur or it will get a little choppy on the edges when you sep it again. That should knock down a lot of the banding that happens when the actual color information of the gradient is extracted.

[Colin]

What JBLUE said.

That pixelization is what Illustrator and all vector programs do with their fades and some blends.

You can actually see it in illy if you zoom in.

[Wildcard]

Check your document raster effects settings in Illustrator, you can bump up the resolution of the gradient effect before saving as tiff.

[JBLUE]

Check your document raster effects settings in Illustrator, you can bump up the resolution of the gradient effect before saving as tiff.

Can you elaborate on that a little more? I do not see where I can mess with that. That would be helpful to up the res on that.

[Colin]

Max I found was 300 dpi.....

[blue moon]

I still maintain that the print will work with what's there. Yes, the films will be jaggy and if you know what to look for on the shirt you'll see it, but the customer would never know and might have a hard time seeing it even if pointed out.

burn the underbase screen and print it. See what happens. . .

pierre

[JBLUE]

I still maintain that the print will work with what's there. Yes, the films will be jaggy and if you know what to look for on the shirt you'll see it, but the customer would never know and might have a hard time seeing it even if pointed out.

burn the underbase screen and print it. See what happens. . .

pierre

The jagged eges wont be the problem with this one. It will be the banding in the gradients that will be the issue. The base will only exaggerate the banding effect.

[Wildcard]

Check your document raster effects settings in Illustrator, you can bump up the resolution of the gradient effect before saving as tiff.

Can you elaborate on that a little more? I do not see where I can mess with that. That would be helpful to up the res on that.

In the Effects drop down menu find the raster effects settings (for that document) and check that it's not set to 72 or 150 by default (which is what it looks like to me in the images) 300dpi is the standard high res setting, which is usually good enough, but I think you can also set a custom resolution that is higher.
So this setting will tell Illustrator to render effects like drop shadows at a particular resolution, like you would in Photoshop.

Pretty sure this is good Intel, but I'm not in front of my pc to check my accuracy. Sorry.

[JBLUE]

Ran a little test. Created a simple black and white gradient at 300 and 600 ppi and they banded the same. Took that file into PS and pulled the colors to see how it pulls the info. File was opened at 600 dpi. Both gradients pulled the banding when pulling the color. Looks like it does not make a difference as far as how the gradient tool renders the gradient itself. This is why we do all of our gradients in PS to eliminate the banding issues that the other vector programs have during the sep process.

[Wildcard]

@JBLUE I may have misunderstood your post, sorry. I was looking only at the resolution of the drop shadow in the image and didn't think of potential banding in the gradient when separating. I have never used any dedicated separation software, so I'm not sure how AI elements react on import.