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Doing CMYK seps for silkscreening and I keep finding complete 360 advice in regards to what percentages/decimals I should be using for angles, etc. for my print separations.
Any suggestions on what works best? (195 is my finest screen available, everything else is lower than that.)
Using CorelDraw X3/PC and Xerox printer (so have the seps available through it's drivers as well as Corel).
Thanks muchly!
/grovel
I myself have done 4-color though a 155 mesh and got it to work but you cannot do anything in fine detail but like cartoon pictures it works you have to do a 35 line art and set your magenta at a 42.5 degrees. But you cannot like put a real photograph for that you need 305 and up
correct. You can get away with 180/48 mesh using 55 line halftones, but moire will creep in on some angles and percentages, and you'll also have a tremendous amount of dot gain. The best mesh I've used for process color printing on garments is Murakami Power Mesh 350/30 at 25 N/cm of tension. I have held 3% dots using this mesh. Also, there are a ton of recommended angle sets, I have tried quite a few. Scitex modified angles have worked really well for me with 55, 65, and 85 line halftones, almost no moire. Just be sure to prepare your file(s) for approx. 70% dot gain and pull way back on the mid tone areas of the black channel.
Your first issue are the seps...straight seps from a basic program won't cut it, we usually use Serichrome Seps out of dallas. ask for kortney.
we do a ton of 4CP and Simulated Process prints up to 14 colors and you'll definitely want to up the mesh counts. CMYK, we're usually running full 305s, with some 255 or 355 depending on the design. anything lower and you won't catch good small halftones for good four color process blending.
when we output films in house off separated CMYK, we're running 55lpi, 22.5 angle, elipse dots.
good luck 8)
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You must use a 305-380 mesh for the CMYK. As far as the angles of your art , testing a couple of variations is your best bet. Everyone seems to do something different. But that 195 mesh is not gonna cut it...