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screen printing => Screen Making => Topic started by: mk162 on June 22, 2011, 07:36:57 AM
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What brand film do most of you guys use? Also, is it waterproof or non?
I don't care for the frosted look of the stuff I use now, and I am thinking about changing. I see that Chromaline has like 4 different films and frankly, their website stinks when it comes to the benefits of each.
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Fixxons, WP film, 13"x18" 81.00. Nazdar has the same for 85.00, Film direct was 87ish I think, Garston is getting it to me for 85 -originally 112.00. . .WP all the way, no comparison.
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i was having issues with clear film and was forced to switch to WP. We use the house brand which I think is Kimoto. More expensive, but it works. I'll eventually try some more, but currently the time is better spent on other things. I'll tackle the things that work later. . .
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Fixxons 13x19 and 24" Rolls. Great stuff and can't beat the price.
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Fixxons 13x19 WP $86 with shipping
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Ok, so I just checked the Dmin and Dmax of the film i ma using now. It's around .03 on the Dmin and only 2.48 on the Dmax. I should be over 3 at minimum. I think it's the pigment based inks on WP film that is bad.
After checking a very old piece of Non-WP, I am going to try switching back. The d-min on that was .01 but the dmax was only 2.2, of course I ha to peel it off the back of another film.
I'll post more results.
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How are you checking the densities?
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I think the RIP is a bigger piece of the story.... but WP film for sure (fixon's or Accufast)
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I just checked,
WP film Dmin is 0.025 Dmax is at 3.03.
Printed last week on EPSON 3000 with inks from compandsave.com ($5.99 ea) using FM V3 at double density.
Film is from Multicraft, but I think it is Kimoto. About $140 for 13x19 (yes, I know it is expensive!).
pierre
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With a pocket densitometer. I have a friend from the offset side that has nifty tools.
I am going to try regular film, I bet it will be better. 2.49 isn't good enough.
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Fixxons 13x19 WP $86 with shipping
Ditto on Fixxons 13 x 19...
Steve
Pierre, Fixxons will send you some free sample sheets to try. They remind me of photo film, of which I shot and processed about a million sheets, but, I don't have the densitometer to measure it.
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Brad I will see if I can get one of our local off setters to test our film, I know of one that has densometer but it is not portable.
Question is what is an ideal DMAX to shoot for? Has anyone published or discussed a good dmin dmax ratio?
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Brad I will see if I can get one of our local off setters to test our film, I know of one that has densometer but it is not portable.
Question is what is an ideal DMAX to shoot for? Has anyone published or discussed a good dmin dmax ratio?
my understanding is 3.0 is considered sufficient for screen printing. Douglas should be able to chime in with tested data.
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ok -I'll be the dumbass as usual - what are you guys talking about? the thickness of the film?
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No the density of the ink. Dmin is how much light is blocked, ie the clear part of the film, and Dmax is how much light is let through, ie where the ink is.
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No the density of the ink. Dmin is how much light is blocked, ie the clear part of the film, and Dmax is how much light is let through, ie where the ink is.
I think you have that turned around, Mike, 'cause obviously clear film doesn't block much light. There is a tiny little percentage of light blocked by clear film (Dminimum) but not really enough to make a difference except on the most demanding situation, and the blacker the ink, the Dmaxier it is. Just want to keep Homer on the up and up.
Steve
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OD is logarithmic, so OD 1 stops 90% of the light, OD 2 99%, OD 3 99.9% etc.
So the difference between 2.5 and 3 isn't as important as you might think.
In addition, are you measuring in the visible or in the uv? Some of you vets may remember Rubylith & Amberlith? Good visible transparency but a uv density of about 4. Just because you can see through the film doesn't mean that it isn't uv dense. Ink manufacturers formulate their inks to avoid sunlight fading so they add uv blocks to their inks.
The difference between 2.5 & 3 will be seen in exposure latitude, a perfect mask means that you can expose for as long as you want, an imperfect mask will start to slow the wash out.
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fixxon's here too. 17" rolls
I want the crystal clear film back too. The wp works "fine" but that clear stuff really shot some perfect stencils.
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I am measuring UV.
I also think that the WP film bleeds out more. I have not had an issue with banding on my 3000 since I switched and we all know that is impossible to not have a single banding issue in almost 2 years. Epsons are notorious for that.
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Accufast 13x19.
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OD is logarithmic, so OD 1 stops 90% of the light, OD 2 99%, OD 3 99.9% etc.
So the difference between 2.5 and 3 isn't as important as you might think.
In addition, are you measuring in the visible or in the uv? Some of you vets may remember Rubylith & Amberlith? Good visible transparency but a uv density of about 4. Just because you can see through the film doesn't mean that it isn't uv dense. Ink manufacturers formulate their inks to avoid sunlight fading so they add uv blocks to their inks.
The difference between 2.5 & 3 will be seen in exposure latitude, a perfect mask means that you can expose for as long as you want, an imperfect mask will start to slow the wash out.
That's good info squeezee....
So the difference between 2.5 and 3.0 D is about .45% of UV transmission ?
-- With the 2.5 blocking 99.45% of the UV and the 3.0 blocking 99.9% of the UV ?
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That cannot be accurate. Then if 3.0 is 99.9, then how can the measurement make it to 6 for imagesetter film? Shouldn't like 3.1 or 3.2 be 100% blockage?
Do you have some documentation on that? I am trying to learn all I can.
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Fixxons WP and am interested in seeing more talk on the dmin/dmax subject.
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Brad I will see if I can get one of our local off setters to test our film, I know of one that has densometer but it is not portable.
Question is what is an ideal DMAX to shoot for? Has anyone published or discussed a good dmin dmax ratio?
This, from Ulano either answers your question, or offers an opinion, that can spur a debate. Notice that it doesn't give a specific d-min, but rather says that a good d.max is sufficient to overcome a less-than-perfectly clear film.
The “dark” and “clear” areas of artwork can be measured on a densitometer. The opacity of the dark areas is referred to as D-max (maximum density) followed by the numeric densitometer reading. D-min refers to the minimum density—which is a measure of the clarity of the artwork. D-max 4.0 is ideal for stencil making, as it allows full exposure of non-image areas even if the artwork medium is cloudy or fogged.
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so according to Ulano, my measurements are bad :(
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What I would like to know what are the numbers based on, for instance obviously 0 is absolute dmin but what number is 100% light blocking?
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Brad, maybe not bad as much as less than ideal.
Mike, according to Ulano, 4 is quite adequate for making stencils, even with the extra time needed with the frosty stuff. So, 4 must be getting close.
If you have the ability to measure, check out a coin. Ulano, in fact suggests a dime used as a control comparison when one has trouble washing the image out.
Here's the whole page on exposure (http://www.ulano.com/FAQ/FAQexposure.htm).
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There is NO 100% measurement! The act of measurement needs some light to be detected. Honestly anything above OD 4 is trying to measure 0.01% of a light source. The noise in the system is close to that.
The formula for calculating OD is OD=Log10(1/transmission) to convert from OD to transmission (TR) TR=1/(10^OD).
The difference between 2.5 (0.3%) and 3 (0.1%) is small and you would normally only see a slow washout. IF the mask is even, you might be seeing unevenness in your positives (what we call holes). Laser film is imaged with static electricity which repels particles of like charge, you tend to see dark edges and light insides.
btw I can bore for England on the subject ;)
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There is NO 100% measurement! The act of measurement needs some light to be detected. Honestly anything above OD 4 is trying to measure 0.01% of a light source. The noise in the system is close to that.
The formula for calculating OD is OD=Log10(1/transmission) to convert from OD to transmission (TR) TR=1/(10^OD).
The difference between 2.5 (0.3%) and 3 (0.1%) is small and you would normally only see a slow washout. IF the mask is even, you might be seeing unevenness in your positives (what we call holes). Laser film is imaged with static electricity which repels particles of like charge, you tend to see dark edges and light insides.
btw I can bore for England on the subject ;)
pfft. . is that all? wham bam boom, Bob's your uncle -you got yourself a screen. . . haha. . . .zooom. . .that was the plane going over my head.
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No joke, that explains it well, especially if I would have understood it. :o
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No joke, that explains it well, especially if I would have understood it. :o
Same here... I do think he said 2.5 isnt that bad...?? 3.0 is better...?? ???
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No joke, that explains it well, especially if I would have understood it. :o
Same here... I do think he said 2.5 isnt that bad...?? 3.0 is better...?? ???
and 4 is damn near perfect!
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I am working on testing the WP vs non WP. I am getting glow edges around my WP film after it sits for a few days. I think the ink is bleeding out and I am getting bid dot gain. I am going to test the dot gain and adjust linearization.
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I am working on testing the WP vs non WP. I am getting glow edges around my WP film after it sits for a few days. I think the ink is bleeding out and I am getting bid dot gain. I am going to test the dot gain and adjust linearization.
that's the exact same thing i had -is it a brownish color? I thought I had bad ink carts or something, it sotpped when I went to WP a few years back.
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mine is white, like when you get the film wet, I am not sure if the ink has actually spread or if it is just the excess moisture. I am testing the non-wp film now for d-max, so far the spread is better on the non-wp film. I will cut some screens today and see how it works.
The nice thing about the RIP i have is I can easily go in and change the percentage of ink it dumps down. I had it cut back to 82% for the old film I used to run, I am testing 100% to see what happens.
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mine is white, like when you get the film wet, I am not sure if the ink has actually spread or if it is just the excess moisture. I am testing the non-wp film now for d-max, so far the spread is better on the non-wp film. I will cut some screens today and see how it works.
The nice thing about the RIP i have is I can easily go in and change the percentage of ink it dumps down. I had it cut back to 82% for the old film I used to run, I am testing 100% to see what happens.
make sure you run teh full gamut of halftone percentage at a pretty good size. One RIP I tested could never get the balance right. If low percentages were good it was pooling ink on the other side. Or, if I adjusted the 90% to print right, there was not enough ink below 10%. This was obvious when the 90% area was at least an inch or possibly a little wider. . .
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OK, so I tested WP and non-WP. I forgot to turn off my linearization tools, which is fine actually but I tested 20-80% and with the non-WP i was dead on for everything, with the WP films, I was 20% high on 20, 10% on 40, 7% on 60 and 5% on 80. So clearly there is more gain on these than the non-wp. This is strictly on the film, not on the print. I turned off my dot gain compensation so I could get an accurate reading and know what I was shooting for.
If anybody wants me to test their films, let me know, I can send you my address and I can check for density and dot%. Some of this won't help people because they adjust at 1 time for both dot gain on press and dot gain on film, but if you know what your press does and you know what your film does, it makes it easier to tune the process.
And of course, this is no charge.
I have attached a file for you to print, it ain't fancy, but I can test this well. Go 50lpi minimum, 55 is recommended.
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Brad your post makes me wonder how consistent the WP film manufacturers are with their product. I highly doubt any seller QC's the product they receive by batch. So there could be the possibility that one batch to the next could have different characteristics albeit minor to 99% of us but important to people like Pierre.
I have films that frost up like Brad talks about and I have films the leech a magenta tinged color I can still shoot both films no prob but wonder why they could be different?
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I have been struggling with some issues in the screen room, one of which was it seemed like my finer detail was filling in. And this explains why. When dots are bigger and lines are thicker, it will effect your final print.
I am sure there are QC issues with most films, after all, look at how the prices have dropped over the years, most of them are probably cheap imports.
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Gain on the film then gain on the press yep wonder what that adds up to total?
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Brad your post makes me wonder how consistent the WP film manufacturers are with their product. I highly doubt any seller QC's the product they receive by batch. So there could be the possibility that one batch to the next could have different characteristics albeit minor to 99% of us but important to people like Pierre.
I have films that frost up like Brad talks about and I have films the leech a magenta tinged color I can still shoot both films no prob but wonder why they could be different?
you know, I have not even thought of that. Thanx for making me worry about more stuff!!!! ;D
I guess the idea of printing the halftone scale on every film (well, the important ones at least) is something I should think about. Photoshop has the option of adding them on the side which might be a good way to keep things in check . . .
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Gain on the film then gain on the press yep wonder what that adds up to total?
I measured it few months back. My 50% read 53% or so on the film. It read 72% on the shirt!
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that is pretty normal.
It's a big deal though that you calibrate them separate I think. That way if you change films, ink or event the printer, you can narrow down your changes to one thing. Rather than 1 thing that compounds into another.
If you PM me, I will send you my address, and you can send me films to test.
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This brings up a problem I had a couple of years ago with WP film.
I started to have very thin streaking going on with our R1800. The streaks were not normal but actual perfect clear very thin lines. I assumed it was the printer and ended up wasting a ton of ink and film on cleaning flushing etc. When nothing changed it finally dawned on me it may be thew film. I dug out an old piece of film already printed and reprinted on an open area not one single streak.
It had to be the film, it was not noticeable by eye till ink was printed on it. So obviously they had an issue when they applied the coating. I double confirmed by printing a piece of the film rotated and sure enough the streaks went the other way.
As CTS becomes more popular and saturated in the industry I wonder if quality for film will drop because of the drop in demand.
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As CTS becomes more popular and saturated in the industry I wonder if quality for film will drop because of the drop in demand.
Or will it be more like the transfer industry and the influx of DTG? They had to step up their game to remain competitive.
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As CTS becomes more popular and saturated in the industry I wonder if quality for film will drop because of the drop in demand.
Or will it be more like the transfer industry and the influx of DTG? They had to step up their game to remain competitive.
Good point!
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I think you will still see a ton of shops using film because frankly manual shops would buy an auto before CTS, home shops are the same way. And of course, some folks won't give it up until the consumables are no longer made.
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The quality of film does vary, we sell Agfa SelectJet plus our own brand. We often see imperfections in our own film (and it's one of the better ones) but the Agfa - never. We haven't had a roll returned in about 10 years of selling it.
I spent 17 years in Autotype R&D developing coatings and there are loads of things that can go wrong when coating a web.
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I measured it few months back. My 50% read 53% or so on the film. It read 72% on the shirt!
How did you measure this?
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I measured it few months back. My 50% read 53% or so on the film. It read 72% on the shirt!
How did you measure this?
betalog 130 densitometer. It reads both transmissive and reflective. 'will gladly read your films and shirts if you'd like!
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betalog 130 densitometer. It reads both transmissive and reflective. 'will gladly read your films and shirts if you'd like!
Still measures in the visible spectrum though.
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betalog 130 densitometer. It reads both transmissive and reflective. 'will gladly read your films and shirts if you'd like!
Still measures in the visible spectrum though.
unfortunately, yes! I wish I had the funds to get UV densitometer, but for this will have to do. The screens are actually looking pretty good, so while betalog is reading visible light, it does provide some information (which is better than none and probably pretty close to the actual UV readings).
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If you are linearising then uv and visible are equivalent because a 50% dot will stop 50% of the 100% value. So the 130 will be fine, it won't tell you whether your film stops 99.5% or 99.7% of the uv spectrum.
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If you are linearising then uv and visible are equivalent because a 50% dot will stop 50% of the 100% value. So the 130 will be fine, it won't tell you whether your film stops 99.5% or 99.7% of the uv spectrum.
yes, in the reflective mode it works right, it's the transmissive that only reads the regular light.
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Did I read that the non-WP was actually better?
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for what?
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Did I read that the non-WP was actually better?
Do you mean read in this thread? What I got from it is that boiled down, this thread pretty much covered opinions and experiences and research concluding that;
1. Obviously, clear, non-wp film has a lower d-min and transmits more light through the non-image area than the "frosty" wp films. The lower the d-max (the opacity or better, the uv blocking ability of the image area) the more important this issue could be.
A high enough d-max can minimize or negate this.
2. Some folks are reporting inconsistencies and/or edge spreading, or glowing (blurring?) over time with some wp films (and some ink combinations?).
3. One possible ideal solution may be non-wp film and a dye-pigment hybrid ink.
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From MK162 -
OK, so I tested WP and non-WP. I forgot to turn off my linearization tools, which is fine actually but I tested 20-80% and with the non-WP i was dead on for everything, with the WP films, I was 20% high on 20, 10% on 40, 7% on 60 and 5% on 80. So clearly there is more gain on these than the non-wp. This is strictly on the film, not on the print. I turned off my dot gain compensation so I could get an accurate reading and know what I was shooting for.
Maybe I didn't understand the results here. Quite understandable - :-\
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From MK162 -
OK, so I tested WP and non-WP. I forgot to turn off my linearization tools, which is fine actually but I tested 20-80% and with the non-WP i was dead on for everything, with the WP films, I was 20% high on 20, 10% on 40, 7% on 60 and 5% on 80. So clearly there is more gain on these than the non-wp. This is strictly on the film, not on the print. I turned off my dot gain compensation so I could get an accurate reading and know what I was shooting for.
Maybe I didn't understand the results here. Quite understandable - :-\
the way I read this is that the WP film had a lot more gain.
this is probably related to the difference between the two.
from what I understand:
regular film is just that. Plain piece of film that takes the ink on the surface (it builds up).
WP film has a coating and it uses the capillary effect to draw the ink into it. My guess is that the capillary effect caused some of the ink to spread out rather than just into the film only.
This is probably film type related as my readings on the WP film are within few percent. What kind of film was it?
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I am pretty sure that this particular issue will vary with type of film, brand of film, type and brand of ink, RIP, and, of course, settings.
I also wonder if the d-max, in this instance was greater along with the dot gain.
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From MK162 -
OK, so I tested WP and non-WP. I forgot to turn off my linearization tools, which is fine actually but I tested 20-80% and with the non-WP i was dead on for everything, with the WP films, I was 20% high on 20, 10% on 40, 7% on 60 and 5% on 80. So clearly there is more gain on these than the non-wp. This is strictly on the film, not on the print. I turned off my dot gain compensation so I could get an accurate reading and know what I was shooting for.
Maybe I didn't understand the results here. Quite understandable - :-\
the way I read this is that the WP film had a lot more gain.
this is probably related to the difference between the two.
from what I understand:
regular film is just that. Plain piece of film that takes the ink on the surface (it builds up).
WP film has a coating and it uses the capillary effect to draw the ink into it. My guess is that the capillary effect caused some of the ink to spread out rather than just into the film only.
This is probably film type related as my readings on the WP film are within few percent. What kind of film was it?
So my question was is the gain a good thing.....or not.
If you got a gain from just the film, I'm thinking that's a bad thing...unless you compensate for it other ways.
By the way, I don't know exactly what the differences are between WP and non-WP, but I can say that the non-WP has a coating too. I know this as I have to lick my fingers and pick up the film to determine which side (currently Ulano non-WP) is coated (print side). Fingers stick to the coated side. Just have to remember to not lick twice ;)
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For my setup, the nonWP film is WAY better. My emulsion edges are sharper and I am getting less scumming. A pigment based ink might work better with the WP film, I am running the old dye inks.
I bet if I change inks it would make a difference. Maybe the film I am using is too cheaply made.
At any rate, I am going back to non-wp.
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A pigment based ink might work better with the WP film, I am running the old dye inks.
I "think" (:) ) you are Exactly right here....Your printer is matched to Non-Wp film.... Dye based ink doesn’t contain solids (or has less of them), so non-Wp film has a thinner coating to trap the thinner dye based ink.... WP film has a thicker coating to trap the solids in a Pigment based ink. The thicker coating has too many pores that allow the thinner dye based ink to spread causing dot gain...
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And that is what I have noticed, it's so much that even small text is noticeably thicker.
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There's a lot of variance in dye ink too. I noticed that epson stock ink on the 1400 we picked up worked very well on fixxons (wp) film but the claira replacement ink I refilled with had the water halos. The ink we run from FilmDirect doesn't have the clear bleeding either.
mk, maybe you already posted this but which printer/ink are you running with the non-wp. I would love to find a non-wp like the kimoto stuff we used to get from westar or preferably higher-end if they make it that will be happy with epsons and our current rip. The underexposure on the squeegee side of thick screens is getting old....
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I am using the film from Brannon at Spot Color Supply. So far it seems good.
I am using a 3000 with dye ink from inksupply.com
After the WP film sits a few days, I get a white halo effect around the image.
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I am using the film from Brannon at Spot Color Supply. So far it seems good.
I am using a 3000 with dye ink from inksupply.com
After the WP film sits a few days, I get a white halo effect around the image.
What rip? I couldn't get Accurip or FastRip to run on the 3k but it printed beautifully on non-wp film using the epson driver or a tweaked out gutenprint setting I made.
I get the halo immediately.
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I am using the film from Brannon at Spot Color Supply. So far it seems good.
I am using a 3000 with dye ink from inksupply.com
After the WP film sits a few days, I get a white halo effect around the image.
since changing the ink can cause issues, I would suggest trying different film. I'd gladly send you few sheets of the stuff I use on my 3000 so you can try it out.
same offer extends to anybody else! I can even print on a portion of it so you can compare the final output.
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I am running OpenRIP NT. Ha, bet nobody has heard of THAT one.
It's good, the problem is I don't want to spend a ton more to upgrade it to work on WIN7, so I have it installed on the server.