Digital BW, The Print

David,

I have worked with a couple of people with photopolymer plates for 
photogravure—a lot of fun.   I am beginning right now to calibrate the KM-73 plate from 
Boxcar Press.   I'm using the Dan Weldon aquatint screen first—then another 
one later that is finer.   (Double Exposure Method)   Amazingly long exposure 
scale in my firsts tests with these plates.

If I am understanding you correctly, you are making your own aquatint screen. 
  You will probably want to go pretty high resolution in bitmap mode. Or 
perhaps you are doing bitmapped positives and doing single exposure?

With many films, the matte black does not fare too well, but it sounds like 
you have a combination that works.

Have you tried the Epson driver?   Do you get banding with it also?

Have you been getting banding on other papers like luster and 

Have you tried Pictorico OHP film?

You may get better results with a head alignment on the film rather than the 
matte papers.

Sorry, just more questions and not too many answers.

Best Wishes,
Mark Nelson

Precision Digital Negatives - The System
PDNPrint Forum at Yahoo Groups
www.MarkINelsonPhoto.com

In a message dated 1/23/08 5:46:18 PM, dkfreed@... writes:


> 
> 
> 
> In response to your questions:
> 
> 1. I'm trying to create digital positive transparencies for exposing
> photopolymer etching plates. To do this, I need the
> random "grain"/pattern similar to an aquatint screen or bitmap image.
> To get this I've been printing grayscale images using Quadtone RIP,
> with matte black only ink, printing at 720 DPI, uni-directional.
> 
> I've also tried printing using the R2400 Advanced B/W mode, which
> doesn' not give me options for resolution or ink cartridges, but I've
> been having the same banding issues in this mode as well.
> 
> 2. I'm printing on InkPress and Grafix transparency film for inkjets.
> (neither has white strip down the side)
> 
> 3. I'm using the matte black ink. I thought photo black would be
> darker or more opaque, but I've found that not to be true. I'm
> satisfied with opacity aspect of my prints.
> 
> 4-5. I've cleaned and aligned the heads a number of times, though I'm
> usually using matte paper to do this, not the transparency film.
> 
> 6. As I noted above, when using Quadtone RIP, I'm printing at 720 DPI
> output with uni-directional printing, so I can get the dot-grain
> pattern I need. I might try at a higher resolution (1440 DPI), but as
> I said, I'm seeing the same problems even in advanced B/W printing,
> which is at high resolution output.
> 
> 
> 












**************
Start the year off right.  Easy ways to stay in shape.
     
http://body.aol.com/fitness/winter-exercise?NCID=aolcmp00300000002489


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]