Screen printing tint percentages....help please.

[Dean_F...@adobeforums.com]

I need to create an image with a single spot color. It needs to have a few different tint percentages. Now, I know how to pick a spot color and change the tint, but when it comes to making the screen printing screen, how do I tell Illustrator to print a dot pattern to reflect the differetn tints?

TIA!

Dean

[Philip_...@adobeforums.com]

If I am understanding you (an iffy situation) in the seperation dialog box you can set the lpi and angle for each color.

[matthew...@adobeforums.com]

Dean, you need to attach a rider to the file. Go Filter/Other/Make Rider. This will bring up a dialogue that allows you to set LPI, Angle, etc. Make sure you save the rider to your plugins folder. The rider will be attached once you save your file as an .ai or an .eps. Don't forget to delete the rider when you start something else or it will be attached to the next file too. If you are printing it to backlit imaging film or whatever yourself, you need to uncheck "use printers default screen" In advanced you may also have an option "Application Halftoning" which will need to be set to "Allow". Good luck, I hope this helps.

[Dean_F...@adobeforums.com]

I put the rider file into my plug-in folder and restarted AI, but "other" isn't showing up under Filter. I tried putting it in the "Plug ins" folder under AI, as well as the "Illustrator Filters" folder". No dice. Any ideas?

Dean

[Dean_F...@adobeforums.com]

Never mind...its there now.

Thanks,

Dean

[Dean_F...@adobeforums.com]

Alright...I made the Rider file. When I try to print my seperations to PDF (for proofing) I can't see any sort of dot pattern in my tint blocks. It seems to come out as a shade of grey. I'm zooming in to 1600% in Actobat...I would think that I would see something.

I really need to figure this out today if I can.

Thanks for your input.

Dean

[Lan...@adobeforums.com]

Hi Dean,

Could you please clarify something from your original post?

When you said you wanted to tell Illustrator how to "print a dot pattern to reflect the different tints" did you mean that you want some objects (for example) to print with a 50% tint and other items to print with a 20% tint, or are you saying you want the different objects to not only have a different percentage tint, but also to print each object at different lpi and screen angles?

If it's the first case, all you have to do is define a spot color, and then use the color palette to set different tint percentages which can be saved as swatches in your swatches palette or just applied to different objects. The dot patterns that represent the different tints will be created automatically when you print, e.g., a 50% tint will print with a dot pattern like a checkerboard, a 10 percent tint will print with a dot pattern of small colored dots with lots of white area.

If you actually want different lpi and screen angles, things get a little complicated. If that's what you want, Phillip's advice won't help since you are dealing with only one spot color. Matthew's suggestion won't work either, since a Riders file only applies to the document as a whole, not for each separate tint. But I'm not sure from your original post that this is what you wanted in the first place.

In any case, printing your separations to PDF and viewing on-screen won't show you the dot pattern. The dot pattern is created by your printer, not by Illustrator. The information that is coming from Illustrator simply says, for example, "make this object a 50% tint." The "dot creating" mechanism is in the printer--it creates the illusion of a 50% tint by making a 50-50 pattern of 100% spot colored dots and pure white dots. When you "print" to PDF (I'm assuming that you're using Distiller to distill a .PS file), Acrobat generates a 50% tint on your computer screen using your monitor pixels, not printer dots.

If you can clarify what, specifically, you are trying to achieve, someone here can probably come up with some advice to help you.

Lance

[matthew...@adobeforums.com]

You don't need different LPI to achieve different tints. The lighter shades will come out with smaller dots, it's as simple as that. I'm not sure if printing to a PDF will show you your halftones, as I think what the rider does is over ride your printers default screen. I may be wrong there, but as long you SAVED THE RIDER YOU MADE TO THE PLUGINS FOLDER it should work. I do this everyday and it works for me. Have you got a device you can print to, to check it out? I could test the file on my Designjet if you really need me to. Let me know if you're at a loose end and I'll give you my email. Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner, but I'm in NZ so I was probably at home in bed. :)

[Dean_F...@adobeforums.com]

My first test went just fine. I made two squares...one 100% tint, and the other at 50%. I did the rider thing, sent it to the image setter....looked fine. I got the tint...little squares. I'll try a few different tints on the same page, and set it to ovals instead of squares.

It should work....I'll let you know.

Thanks for the postings.

Dean

[matthew...@adobeforums.com]

I normally use "simple round", it works well for me. Glad I could help. It's one of the few things I know a little about. :)

[Renee...@adobeforums.com]

..

[Renee...@adobeforums.com]

I'm trying to do the same thing, for a silk screen printer I'm working with, (I'm a graphic Artist that freelances with others doing their graphics) it looks good on my printer, but she says the dots are too small to make screens out of! (I have the line frequency at 5!)
Help!!

& I don't know a anything about that "rider" your talking about, it's been quite a few years since I went to school for this I've been working in vector only for a a lot of years.
your assistance would be greatly appreciated

graphic...@aol.com

[Dean_F...@adobeforums.com]

Renee,

Look up riders in your help menu. There is a file (riders)that you have to move from Illustrator10\Utilities\Riders into your Illustrator10\Plug-ins folder.

Once you've done that, restart Illustrator.

In Illustrator go to Filter>Other>Make rider. Make your settings and save it under you Illustrator Plug-ins folder.

Make a print and let me know how it looks.

Be aware...That file will effect every file that has tints untill you delete the file, and resave the files without the rider in place. I guess it embeds the halftoning info in the file itself. (Read the help)

Please try some different dot shapes, and let me konw if you are able to get it to work.

Thanks,

Dean

[matthew...@adobeforums.com]

45 LPI should be ok for your screen printer. If they can't deal with that {shrug} I get away with much smaller....

Other than that, just do what Dean said and let us know how you get on.

[B._Phi...@adobeforums.com]

I have never cared for the whole "rider" thing, because when you go to print out, it works just fine to set the lpi values in the separations dialog (customizable for each color, including CMYK and spot colors).

Bert

[matthew...@adobeforums.com]

But if I do all my seperations manually, I get to lay things up how/where I want them on the film. I get to apply trapping differently to different areas (such as complex logos) and I know it's going to be right.

[Renee...@adobeforums.com]

Thanks for the info Dean, But maybe the problem is I don't have Illustrator 10, I have 8 & 9, is it possible to do it in 8 or 9?

[B._Phi...@adobeforums.com]

Matthew:

I guess I'm spoiled by being the designer and the printshop, I never have to worry about 'them' getting it right.

Bert

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