Making Film Positive

[lanea0]

We are silkscreen printing CR80 plastic cards for member clubs, etc. We are using an Epson Artisan 50 printer with BlackMax ink cartridges. We are printing on clear film recommended for burning screens and we would like to get very sharp, opaque images. We print fairly fine detail and we would like to know if you can suggest the best printing options to choose for our process.

For example, we wonder if you would suggest which of the following options we should use:
1. Main menu –
a. Quality “Best photo”
b. Type “Ultra Premium Paper Glossy”
c. Any other setting you would suggest.

2. Advanced menu –
a. Paper & quality option “Ultra Premium Paper Glossy”
b. Print options – “High Speed” off, “Edge Smoothing” & “Black/grayscale” on

3. Color controls –
a. Gamma – 2.2
b. Brightness & Contrast - ?

4. Any other suggestions you might offer to get sharp, opaque images.

Thank you very much for your assistance.

[Catspit Productions]

First of all I would suggest that you make sure you are using a high quality water proof inkjet film positive. Those will make the best film positives you can get from an inkjet printer.



I wouldn’t change any color setting as they will tweak color rather than help create density. If you are printing directly to the printer without RIP software you can use 100% CMYK color rich blacks:

http://howtoscreenprintshirts.com/2011/ ... -software/

All the other settings you show look fine and the article above goes through some similar settings for an Epson 1400.

[ApeShirt]

I assume you are using AccuRIP as I believe that is the only way to use BlackMAX. If so, be sure to go into the AccuRIP setup and adjust your droplet weight and print resolution. I currently use 1440x720 dpi and droplet weight of 8 with my Epson 1400. Do a halftone test print and droplet weight test print.

[upperhandprinting]

Greg,
We're setting up an Epson 4800 at work right now. It's using refillable cartridges, but not blackmaxx. We're using a 17' roll for film and Accurip. I got the printer to recognize the cartridges as full, and the roll to feed through correctly. I printed out a few films and it just looks a little light. I tested out the test page, and then used that to burn a screen, it washed out okay at 100%, but it was kind of a pain. Just a bit more opaque and we'll be set. So if I just change the droplet weight, will that solve this issue? It kind of look likes its half toning areas that should be 100%, and we're just doing spot colors. On accurips site, it explains printing out of photoshop, you need to have the image set to multichannel, and then change a setting in the print dialogue box to "separations". The problem there is that as soon as. Change it to multichannel, it flattens the image. That obviously won't work for separations. Ha. If you have any ideas, I'd love to hear them. Hopefully this post is clear about what my issues are.
Thanks! Take care
Craig