How would you sep this?

[screenxpress]

I think we are all our own worst critics.   

[Prosperi-Tees]

Yeah I know I am. I just want things to look good and not look amatuerish. lol

[screenxpress]

Oh, check your email

[3Deep]

Sometimes we overthink our projects, when it is very simple to do and let it go, I know I do this all the time until I get it to point where I can't sep it right.

[Screened Gear]

Hey Pro not bad..I know everyone was saying higher mesh 305,s, but you could have hit that dead on with the 230 screens...I,m thinking you pulled your gradients for your black to high and covered the orange to much...Oh the black at the bottom of that bucket you should have gave it a 25% fill of the black.  I,m no expert here just telling what I would have done and I like learning from these cats as much as the next guy.  Your print looks great and if your like me your allways looking to get better.

Darryl

Like 3deep said, always lighten your gradients on "spot color" stuff like this. On the press you can always do a double hit if it is too light. You can't do anything if it is too dark.

Another thing to watch out for with Half tones is too hard of a flood or too soft of a print stroke. What this does is puts ink under the screen filling your half tones. You have to clean the back of the screen before you can print more. I think that is what happened to your print a little. Go back out the press and clean the back of the black screen then give it a soft flood and one hard print. I bet it prints alot better. Buy a rip or use the free ones out there. I use Ghost script and it does everything I need. (its free and works great with Illustrator.)

I hope this helps.

Jon

[Dottonedan]

If printing the black halftone over top, I would try this. I have 5% in the highlight area. (depending on how well you hold small dots), you might adjust that. Some hold smaller and some need it even larger.  I would use 50lpi halftone on the 230 mesh. I opened up the shadow tone to be around 70-80% in the darkest range. It can fill in as it is to get solid. Opening the gradation up this far allows for the shadow tones to print decent. Like maybe after printing, the shadow would be near 100% solid....but at least you have that mid tone much more open and can see a good transition form light to dark.

I don't really want to put halftone in the lightest area, but based on your print, you are not holding that lighter area as much as needed so I would add more dot %, You seem to have it fading off to nothing. This increases your chances for a smoother looking halftone transition (but does add a tone to what would normally be 0%

[Prosperi-Tees]

Appreciate all the input. This is actually my very first time having to do halftones in the past 18 months, most of the stuff I do is real basic spot color but I am liking the education on how to properly print gradients. I am gonna look into Ghostrip, I heard it is a little harder to get the hang of than some of the other paid for RIPs on the market.

[JBLUE]

Appreciate all the input. This is actually my very first time having to do halftones in the past 18 months, most of the stuff I do is real basic spot color but I am liking the education on how to properly print gradients. I am gonna look into Ghostrip, I heard it is a little harder to get the hang of than some of the other paid for RIPs on the market.

Since time is money and it is going to take some significant time for you to learn Ghostrip your better off paying for a Rip. In 15 minutes You could have Accurip installed and be already printing films. You need to look at cost vs reward. Time is money. You need to look at everything that you mess with in your shop is costing you money until you are pulling shirts off the pallets and putting them in a box. 100.00 per hour for shop time at 4 hours of screwing with Ghostrip pays for Accurip right off the bat.

[Screened Gear]

Appreciate all the input. This is actually my very first time having to do halftones in the past 18 months, most of the stuff I do is real basic spot color but I am liking the education on how to properly print gradients. I am gonna look into Ghostrip, I heard it is a little harder to get the hang of than some of the other paid for RIPs on the market.

Since time is money and it is going to take some significant time for you to learn Ghostrip your better off paying for a Rip. In 15 minutes You could have Accurip installed and be already printing films. You need to look at cost vs reward. Time is money. You need to look at everything that you mess with in your shop is costing you money until you are pulling shirts off the pallets and putting them in a box. 100.00 per hour for shop time at 4 hours of screwing with Ghostrip pays for Accurip right off the bat.

I agree about time and money. There are a lot better Rips than Ghost Script. It’s Just what I started with and It does a really good job. If your just starting out I wouldn’t try to do the highest LPI like many on here. I did a lot of great work at 40 - 45 LPI. It’s easier to wash out and control on a manual press as a beginner. Keep playing with it and you will get it.

[prozyan]

Ghostscript with Ghostview takes all of about 10 minutes to get setup and working.  And this is if you are taking breaks to watch some TV while setting it up.

[blue moon]

The print looks good! You have the right idea and with Dan's info you should be able to nail it next time. Halftones, like anything else, require a little bit of practice and you are on the right path. Next step is to measure what's the smallest dot you can hols and adjusting the artwork for it. Also, got few higher mesh screens (230, 280, 305). They will help keeping the smaller dots.

As far as RIP, FilmMaker DTP Lite Epson 1100 Edition is only $195. I would think long and hard about getting it.
While Ghostscript does work and produces very good results, Film Maker is so much easier and it has a boatload of features.
It is hard to understand until you use it, but just as everybody else says, RIP is the way to go. At $195 FM is an AWESOME deal! It is the best RIP of the several I tested and you can get into it for very little money . . .

pierre

[Sbrem]

230 would be fine here, if we wanted to go crazy, 2 - 230 for the blend, and a 156 for the solid black. As others said and Dan illustrated, pull the halftones back. You can do the halftoning in PS without the need for a RIP, but really, get a RIP, install it and go. It's just another piece of equipment after all, and one that produces benefits right away. My 2 cents anyway...

Steve

[inkman996]

Dan something I always wanted to discuss is the issue of fading from nothing to something. If a printer such as myself can hold a 5% but nothing below there is always that hard edge to contend with. How does other printers deal with this? Do they just leave it as is or is there a trick to smoothly go from 0% to 5% without to much of an edge?

Here is a really crazy thought.

Lets say I can only hold the 5% dot. and my last line of halftones is 55 dots in an inch. Now instead of stopping there why not have the next line have only 50 dots in an inch, then 45 then 40 and so on. I wonder how that would look on a print? It would need to stop around 30 or so of course no point in having dots overly spaced out.

[Dottonedan]

I always wanted to discuss is the issue of fading from nothing to something. If a printer such as myself can hold a 5% but nothing below there is always that hard edge to contend with. How does other printers deal with this? Do they just leave it as is or is there a trick to smoothly go from 0% to 5% without to much of an edge?[/quote]

PRINT LIGHT OVER TOP OF DARK INK:
One work around that does well if you have the colors, is to print the black (under the Orange). In this case, you don't need to adjust the black (as much as  you would if it were printing on top but you still nee dot adjust that black a little so that you don't hey too much solid coverage.

You also need to open up the orange (just a bit) so that the black can actually mix a tad bit with the orange and you're able to show a good (dark) color transition.  This is a bit more difficult to judge before hand. Here, you are somewhat guessing as to how much the black will show through. TIP, very translucent inks will work better for this.

In this case, I would also print this earlier in the run. If I have 4 colors and 2 are Orange and Black, (and I am doing this technique, I would print the black first...then orange...so that the other two run over top and help mix the black into the Orange. The result can be fantastic as you will have that nice smooth blend,,.,and not have much if any actual dot showing.

Here is a really crazy thought. Lets say I can only hold the 5% dot. and my last line of halftones is 55 dots in an inch. Now instead of stopping there why not have the next line have only 50 dots in an inch, then 45 then 40 and so on. I wonder how that would look on a print? It would need to stop around 30 or so of course no point in having dots overly spaced out.

I see where you are headed, but a cog in the wheel is that the dot size of a 1% in a 35lpi is very close in size to the dot size of a 2% in the next jump up such as a 2% in a 40 lpi  So I don't foresee an easy or smooth drop off or fade.

[blue moon]

Lets say I can only hold the 5% dot. and my last line of halftones is 55 dots in an inch. Now instead of stopping there why not have the next line have only 50 dots in an inch, then 45 then 40 and so on. I wonder how that would look on a print? It would need to stop around 30 or so of course no point in having dots overly spaced out.

this is actually dealt with quite nicely in the Wasatch RIP. You tell it what the smallest dot is you can hold, and anything lower than it they just reduce the number of dots.

I have been told by Cadlink that this will be available in the Film Maker soon. My understanding is that the programing is done and that they are working on the interface.

Here's an image from Wasatch:



and the interface:


and the actual description page:

http://www.wasatch.com/rosetteHybrid.html

pierre