What mesh?

[ABuffington]

Nice print Jason

Dan, you can image a 55 line halftone, 70/30 elliptical at 29 degrees.  Jason advise is key here, use your RIP to use all tonal values in a 10-85 range to image on a coarser thin thread mesh.  How that mesh is captured is key to preventing moire.  If angled slightly on the screen during gluing or how the rollers take up the mesh on a retensionable can angle the threads as well.  Then how the mesh maintains a square opening is also important.

My friend in China images 50 line at 61 degrees on a 135/S mesh from Murakami. 

Al

[ZooCity]

So the concept here is to leave your entire range of information in the art and then have the RIP boost/trim the dots to hold on whatever mesh/lpi you are running?

i.e., a 1-100% range gradient bar would then image at 8%-85% at either end in the case of this print Jason did and then you smooth the transitions out in between?

[Dottonedan]

Nice print Jason

Dan, you can image a 55 line halftone, 70/30 elliptical at 29 degrees.  Jason advise is key here, use your RIP to use all tonal values in a 10-85 range to image on a coarser thin thread mesh.  How that mesh is captured is key to preventing moire.  If angled slightly on the screen during gluing or how the rollers take up the mesh on a retensionable can angle the threads as well.  Then how the mesh maintains a square opening is also important.

My friend in China images 50 line at 61 degrees on a 135/S mesh from Murakami. 

Al

But holding down to what % without clipping anything?  Like I said, yes, you can do 55lpi on 110 but only to a certain size dot before the mesh threads start eating away at it. That might be 14-16% dot.  In other words, "clipping" at the lowest you can hold...on a 110 at 55lpi.  If that's the case, then sure. You can hold 100lpi but only in the window of 40% to the 60% on low mesh for example.

Bottom line is, no matter the angle, a dot is going to hit somewhere and be blocked. The only way to know for sure is to use s loop, print a 55lpi onto film, lay it over your mesh...and pick the smallest dot that covers two mesh threads and one mesh opening, THAT then, is the smallest dot% to use in your art. This way, the (size) of that smallest dot will actually print no matter where it lands.

Zoo,

Yes. That about sums it up.

[Sbrem]

I adjust the curve in the rip so the 99% tones actually come out at 85...  basically before we had a densitometer we would just print a 0 to 100% scale and adjust the rip till we had a nice smooth transition from 0 to 100.

Then adjust the contrast curve in the art to match what is coming out on print.

Would I be correct in assuming you can save that particular profile in your RIP to call us as needed? So you don't have reset your RIP for other jobs?

Steve

[jvanick]

I adjust the curve in the rip so the 99% tones actually come out at 85...  basically before we had a densitometer we would just print a 0 to 100% scale and adjust the rip till we had a nice smooth transition from 0 to 100.

Then adjust the contrast curve in the art to match what is coming out on print.

Would I be correct in assuming you can save that particular profile in your RIP to call us as needed? So you don't have reset your RIP for other jobs?

Steve

yup.. in our old I-Image software, there's actually no way that I've found yet to reliably have a default curve get applied... so what we do is load a curve for every halftone job...  I save the curves that I've found work like:

230-40---65lpi
150-48---45lpi

etc.

and then recall them at the time of prepping the file.

if anybody who has an old epson based i-image with the iBlock rip has figured out how to reliably have a curve that works for all files that get loaded by default, I'd love to hear about it.  I know Pierre hated the iBlock rip so bad that he loaded up filmmaker.. which I may try to do someday.. but for now this works.

[Dottonedan]

I adjust the curve in the rip so the 99% tones actually come out at 85...  basically before we had a densitometer we would just print a 0 to 100% scale and adjust the rip till we had a nice smooth transition from 0 to 100.

Then adjust the contrast curve in the art to match what is coming out on print.

Would I be correct in assuming you can save that particular profile in your RIP to call us as needed? So you don't have reset your RIP for other jobs?

Steve

I'll answer that for the newer I-Images. I don't know much about the I-Block.

For the I-Images and its RIP, yes. You can save a curve compensation or "clip" for specific types of jobs. Let's say 65lpi on 300 mesh would get one time of curve. You can then create a folder setup, to where you drop the art into that folder, knowing that you want that curve applied. That's it. The curve gets applied and your off and running. No other settings to change,  do it once, and then drop what you want into that folder setup.

[ZooCity]

Got it.

Dan, fyi, the thin thread mesh is so open that with good lpi/angle (murakami even has a chart with copacetic numbers for different mesh) you have much less mesh blockage.  There's always a line of course. 

The wall that I hit with thin thread is emulsion that's not strong enough essentially.  I can image and resolve what I want but the the little dots can't hang onto the the mesh so the limiting factor with thin thread, for me, hasn't been mesh knuckles blocking dots but dots not having enough thread to grip onto and hang tight through a print run.  Very tough, strong bridging emulsion might solve this?

We are playing with this "compressing" of the % range currently, I'm contemplating moving all our work to 55lpi and ditching the 45,50,55,60,65 array we've used in the past.  I think it'll click for 95% of what we do but more testing to do.

[Sbrem]

I adjust the curve in the rip so the 99% tones actually come out at 85...  basically before we had a densitometer we would just print a 0 to 100% scale and adjust the rip till we had a nice smooth transition from 0 to 100.

Then adjust the contrast curve in the art to match what is coming out on print.

Would I be correct in assuming you can save that particular profile in your RIP to call us as needed? So you don't have reset your RIP for other jobs?

Steve

I'll answer that for the newer I-Images. I don't know much about the I-Block.

For the I-Images and its RIP, yes. You can save a curve compensation or "clip" for specific types of jobs. Let's say 65lpi on 300 mesh would get one time of curve. You can then create a folder setup, to where you drop the art into that folder, knowing that you want that curve applied. That's it. The curve gets applied and your off and running. No other settings to change,  do it once, and then drop what you want into that folder setup.

I think you're talking about CTS RIP's and I'm talking about AccuRIP. What would one do to the other 18 steps in the RIP? Or would they adjust themselves? A trick I learned, to do it in Photoshop, was to open Curves, double click the "black" eyedropper, which opens up the " color picker"; set the K (lower right) to 85, and click OK; then, do the same with the "white" eyedropper, and set the K to 8, and click OK. Then click on the whitest part of the image with the white eyedropper to make it 8%, and click on the blackest part of the image with the black eyedropper to make it 85%. Same result? I know with the Photoshop version, the rest of the curve adjusts, but have never tried it in AccuRIP to see if it does...

Steve

[Dottonedan]

I adjust the curve in the rip so the 99% tones actually come out at 85...  basically before we had a densitometer we would just print a 0 to 100% scale and adjust the rip till we had a nice smooth transition from 0 to 100.

Then adjust the contrast curve in the art to match what is coming out on print.

Would I be correct in assuming you can save that particular profile in your RIP to call us as needed? So you don't have reset your RIP for other jobs?

Steve

I'll answer that for the newer I-Images. I don't know much about the I-Block.

For the I-Images and its RIP, yes. You can save a curve compensation or "clip" for specific types of jobs. Let's say 65lpi on 300 mesh would get one time of curve. You can then create a folder setup, to where you drop the art into that folder, knowing that you want that curve applied. That's it. The curve gets applied and your off and running. No other settings to change,  do it once, and then drop what you want into that folder setup.

I think you're talking about CTS RIP's and I'm talking about AccuRIP. What would one do to the other 18 steps in the RIP? Or would they adjust themselves? A trick I learned, to do it in Photoshop, was to open Curves, double click the "black" eyedropper, which opens up the " color picker"; set the K (lower right) to 85, and click OK; then, do the same with the "white" eyedropper, and set the K to 8, and click OK. Then click on the whitest part of the image with the white eyedropper to make it 8%, and click on the blackest part of the image with the black eyedropper to make it 85%. Same result? I know with the Photoshop version, the rest of the curve adjusts, but have never tried it in AccuRIP to see if it does...

Steve

To me, I believe that if you do this as you described, Yes, that 85% does "lean towards" fills in at 85%...but your true solid areas will also come out at 85% halftone. Here then, you are hoping for fill in and maybe in some cases, intentionally laying it down heavier on press than anticipated (at what should already be solids).

[Sbrem]

I adjust the curve in the rip so the 99% tones actually come out at 85...  basically before we had a densitometer we would just print a 0 to 100% scale and adjust the rip till we had a nice smooth transition from 0 to 100.

Then adjust the contrast curve in the art to match what is coming out on print.

Would I be correct in assuming you can save that particular profile in your RIP to call us as needed? So you don't have reset your RIP for other jobs?

Steve

I'll answer that for the newer I-Images. I don't know much about the I-Block.

For the I-Images and its RIP, yes. You can save a curve compensation or "clip" for specific types of jobs. Let's say 65lpi on 300 mesh would get one time of curve. You can then create a folder setup, to where you drop the art into that folder, knowing that you want that curve applied. That's it. The curve gets applied and your off and running. No other settings to change,  do it once, and then drop what you want into that folder setup.

I think you're talking about CTS RIP's and I'm talking about AccuRIP. What would one do to the other 18 steps in the RIP? Or would they adjust themselves? A trick I learned, to do it in Photoshop, was to open Curves, double click the "black" eyedropper, which opens up the " color picker"; set the K (lower right) to 85, and click OK; then, do the same with the "white" eyedropper, and set the K to 8, and click OK. Then click on the whitest part of the image with the white eyedropper to make it 8%, and click on the blackest part of the image with the black eyedropper to make it 85%. Same result? I know with the Photoshop version, the rest of the curve adjusts, but have never tried it in AccuRIP to see if it does...

Steve

To me, I believe that if you do this as you described, Yes, that 85% does "lean towards" fills in at 85%...but your true solid areas will also come out at 85% halftone. Here then, you are hoping for fill in and maybe in some cases, intentionally laying it down heavier on press than anticipated (at what should already be solids).

my concern is about "flattening" the image, a lack of contrast...

Steve

[JBLUE]

We use 305's here all the time with no issues. Our standard everyday screens for discharge are 200's. 180's if we really want to lay down the ink. Low mesh and discharge do not get a long like most believe. There is no need for the ink to penetrate more than 50% of the shirt.