Halftone Printing Settings for transparency

Questions on certain printers and applications
Post Reply
craigdsm
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed May 29, 2019 4:58 am

Halftone Printing Settings for transparency

Post by craigdsm »

I have recently downloaded the trial version of PrintFab to tests its use for printing halftone transparencies for screen printing on my Epson Stylus Pro R3000 printer. I have a few questions.

1. I have Piezography all black (different shades of black) installed in my R3000 printer. While I primarily use these inks for printing digital negatives, I am also hoping to use my same printer/ inks to print positive halftone transparencies. As such, I do not want the printer to use ink from all the cartridges only from the Yellow Cartridge (in which Photo Black is installed) or from the K/ Matte Black Cartridge (in which Matte Black Ink is installed) as these are the darkest shades of black. How do I select which Cartridges are used for printing halftones? Is there a was to print only from either the Yellow or K cartridges?

2. When I print under PrintFab Halftone Single Black or Single Black (pre- halftoned), PrintFab appears ro be using more than one ink channel not just the printer assigned black (thr Matte Black Channel). How do i prevent this from happening?

3. If I am able to print from only one cartridge (such as the Yellow Cartridge which has Photo Black Ink Installed) will there be any problems/ banding from using only one cartridge to print halftones?

4. Is there a difference in image quality if i convert print to halftone in Photoshop and print in PrintFab Single Black (pre- halftoned) and if I create halftones in PrintFab? Is it same bitmapping process?

5. What image resolution do you recommend for images that will be printed as halftone transparencies? Is 720 ppi acceptable or would you recommend another image resolution?

Please kindly let me know as soon as possible so i can test it before my trial expires.

Craig
zedonet
Site Admin
Posts: 2156
Joined: Fri Oct 06, 2006 8:02 am

Re: Halftone Printing Settings for transparency

Post by zedonet »

Hello,

1. yes this is possible. For "Matte Black" use the settings visible in the screenshots.

To print with the cartridge "Yellow" (which you have replaced with "Photo Black") only, switch "Halftone Screen Mode" to "Multi Black" and disable all colors except "Multi Black Cartridge Yellow".

R3000-matte-black-transparency.png
R3000-matte-black-transparency.png (45.69 KiB) Viewed 22085 times
R3000-screenprinting-settings.png
R3000-screenprinting-settings.png (52.55 KiB) Viewed 22085 times
2. See above

3. No banding should occur, if all the printer's ink nozzles are working properly. Please print a nozzle test page and perform print head cleaning if necessary. If you have problems with print quality or ink drying too slow, I recommend to increase the print resolution which leads to slower printing and reduces banding.

4. Converting to halftone in Photoshop should produce the same result. However, when doing the halftoning in Photoshop, it is essential to set the image dpi to 720dpi x 720dpi (for 720dpi and 1440pdi print resolution) or 1440dpi x 1440dpi (for 2880dpi and 5860dpi print quality) and print the image at 100% size.

5. I recommend at least 1440dpi, you can try if a higher resolution improves results (see 3.)
craigdsm
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed May 29, 2019 4:58 am

Re: Halftone Printing Settings for transparency

Post by craigdsm »

Thank you for your quick reply.

I have a few follow up questions.

1. If I want to print from only the Yellow Cartridge (in which I have Photo Black installed), should I use the following settings seen in first screen grab below?

Will this only print using ink from the Yellow Cartridge? Do I also need to lower the other ink levels (Cyan, Magenta, and Black) under Ink Control 2 shown below?

2. If I want to print from only the MK Matte Black Cartridge (in which I have Matte Black installed), I will follow the screen grab you sent in you last message; however, under the PrintFab Special Settings Screen Printing menu one is only allowed one to enable or disable Black, Cyan, Magenta and Yellow. My printer the Epson R3000 has 9 ink cartridges. If I deselect all but the Black Cartridge will it still print using ink from the LK and LLK channels?

3. While I plan to print my transparency at the highest dpi possible, 5760dpi, I want to know what ppi I should set the image resolution at in Photoshop before converting it to halftone and opening file in Print Tool. Often one is told to set the resolution at 360ppi or 720 ppi. Are you saying I should the image resolution higher in Photoshop such as 1440ppi?

4. I am trying to print the darkest black possible for my transparencies. How high can I raise the Screen Ink Saturation?

5. I see that in the screen grab you sent the printer is listed as R3000_(PrintFab); whereas my printer is listed as Stylus_Photo_R3000_(PrintFab). Does this make a difference?

Thanks

Craig
Attachments
Screen Shot 2019-05-29 at 5.18.23 AM.jpg
Screen Shot 2019-05-29 at 5.18.23 AM.jpg (32.96 KiB) Viewed 22083 times
Screen Shot 2019-05-29 at 3.54.34 AM.jpg
Screen Shot 2019-05-29 at 3.54.34 AM.jpg (39.58 KiB) Viewed 22083 times
zedonet
Site Admin
Posts: 2156
Joined: Fri Oct 06, 2006 8:02 am

Re: Halftone Printing Settings for transparency

Post by zedonet »

1. If I want to print from only the Yellow Cartridge (in which I have Photo Black installed), should I use the following settings seen in first screen grab below? Will this only print using ink from the Yellow Cartridge?
Yes. Important: If you scroll down, there will be more cartridges that you should deselect (see also question 2).
Do I also need to lower the other ink levels (Cyan, Magenta, and Black) under Ink Control 2 shown below?
No, these settings are not relevant in Silkscreen printing mode.
2. If I want to print from only the MK Matte Black Cartridge (in which I have Matte Black installed), I will follow the screen grab you sent in you last message; however, under the PrintFab Special Settings Screen Printing menu one is only allowed one to enable or disable Black, Cyan, Magenta and Yellow. My printer the Epson R3000 has 9 ink cartridges. If I deselect all but the Black Cartridge will it still print using ink from the LK and LLK channels?
You can switch LK and LLK on and off. If you scroll down, there should be more "Multi Black Cartridge ..." options for Gray, Light Gray, ...
3. While I plan to print my transparency at the highest dpi possible, 5760dpi, I want to know what ppi I should set the image resolution at in Photoshop before converting it to halftone and opening file in Print Tool. Often one is told to set the resolution at 360ppi or 720 ppi. Are you saying I should the image resolution higher in Photoshop such as 1440ppi?
This is true for the original Epson driver that has a maximum input resolution of 720dpi.

For PrintFab, depending on the PrintFab print quality setting, set the Photoshop image resolution to
- 720ppi, for "720dpi" and "1440pdi" print quality
- 1440ppi, for "2880dpi" and "5760dpi" print quality

Also make sure to set the print size to 100% in the Photoshop print dialog.
4. I am trying to print the darkest black possible for my transparencies. How high can I raise the Screen Ink Saturation?
This depends on the transpareny film used - 200% is a good starting point.
5. I see that in the screen grab you sent the printer is listed as R3000_(PrintFab); whereas my printer is listed as Stylus_Photo_R3000_(PrintFab). Does this make a difference?
No, same printer (I renamed the printer when I set it up in PrintFab Toolbox).
craigdsm
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed May 29, 2019 4:58 am

Re: Halftone Printing Settings for transparency

Post by craigdsm »

Thank you for getting back to me. Sorry I went to print few more quick questions.

1. I will be printing from Special Settings Screen Printing> Multi Black (pre-halftoned). What mode do I save the file in Photoshop before opening it with Print Tool? Can I leave the file in bitmap or should I convert it back to Grayscale (Gray Gamma 2.2) or RGB (Adobe) before opening it and printing it with Print Tool? If I convert to halftone directly in PrintFab using Multi Black setting (again with only Yellow channel enabled) what color space should the file be in when I open it in Print Tool?

2.I will be printing from Special Settings Screen Printing> Multi Black (pre-halftoned) with only the Yellow Cartridge (in which I have Piezography High Density Photo Black installed) and I will have all the other cartridges disabled. On the PrintFab settings Main menu should I set the Mode to Photo Black or Matte Black? Does it Matter? Will this try to print from the Black channel as well?

3. On the Print Tool "Print Color Management" setting do I select No Color Management or Print Driver Managed?
zedonet
Site Admin
Posts: 2156
Joined: Fri Oct 06, 2006 8:02 am

Re: Halftone Printing Settings for transparency

Post by zedonet »

1. + 3. No printer driver color management is active in pre-halftoned Screen Printing mode, so it does not make any difference which color space you use. You can leave the file in bitmap and the Print Tool setting "Print Color Management" is ignored.

2. The R3000 has two black cartridge in its original inks - Matte Black and Photo Black - and the printer can only use one of them at a time. With the PrintFab Setting "Cartridge" in the Main menu you can select which one to use. If you print only from the cartridge that replaces "Yellow", it makes no difference if you select "Matte Black" or "Photo Black" in PrintFab.
Kees Brandenburg
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Nov 15, 2022 12:07 pm

Re: Halftone Printing Settings for transparency

Post by Kees Brandenburg »

I have a problem with half tone settings and a pre-halftoned negative. I am using a 1440ppi FM halftoned file. When selecting Multi Black (pre-halftoned) the 'normal' half toning settings are still kicking in when printing. This can easily be checked by selecting either 10 or 110lpi in the menu before printing. Results are very different with an awfull moiré. Is there a way to bypass this (second} halftoning and print a high-res FM half tone?

I have been testing this with an Epson 3880 and an Epson P6000 (with Epson 7890 driver) on Sihl film.
zedonet
Site Admin
Posts: 2156
Joined: Fri Oct 06, 2006 8:02 am

Re: Halftone Printing Settings for transparency

Post by zedonet »

If you are printing pre-halftoned black-and-white images, I recommend to set "Halftone Screen Mode"="Single Black (no halftone)" (or "All Black (no halftone)" for an all black cartridge set). This is a new option that was introduced in PrintFab 2.97-4.

The setting "Single Black (pre-halftone)" usually also works but there is a potential problem which you encountered: if color management is active in the application your are printing from, black is not sent as pure black to the driver and a "second halftoning" is applied. It usually helps to enable the option "Separations" in the application program (e.g. Photoshop or Illustrator).
Kees Brandenburg
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Nov 15, 2022 12:07 pm

Re: Halftone Printing Settings for transparency

Post by Kees Brandenburg »

Hi Florian,

The 'single/all black - no halftone' setting did the trick!

I am using Icefields (software is discontinued and website gone). I bought a license many years ago and the app still runs on my mac, even with the M1 chip and MacOs 13.0.1. I had not used it for years though. Icefields can generate AM and FM half toned files. Some old info can be found on archive dot org. Of course photoshop and other software can also do the halftoning.

I am using the Icefields FM setting at 1440ppi. My goal is to test these pre-halftoned files to make hi-res digital negatives with stochastic halftones with an Epson P6000. This printer is not yet supported by PrintFab but works perfectly with the 7890 driver. My aim is to 'mimic' imagesetter halftones with inkjet. If the result is usable and 'maybe' better than the current digineg approaches is still to be seen. Until now I have been using QuadToneRip for digital negatives which has the build in possibility to 'insert' process specific correction curves in the RIP. Some processes gain by the use of imagesetter negatives in combination with a set of tone separated negatives. The on-off character of these negatives can't be reached with a 'normal' inkjet digital negative.

At this moment I am testing 'black only' and 'all black' with the demo version of PrintFab XL and the standard Epson inks. I will examinate the possibilities of making digital negatives with either an 'all black' UV blocking ink, the piezography BW inkset or standard Epson inks.
Standard inks are interesting because they permit to use colorized negatives for UV sensitive alternative processes. When choosing 'all black' one can mix K, LK and Y for example by just enabling these inks or make a green negative by using C as an aditional ink.

I have a few questions about PrintFab. Am I right that when choosing only 3 inks, these inks are layered as equal parts? I don't think the inks are partioned because that does only make sense with continuous tone.

Does PrintFab bypass all Epson driver software like other RIP's do? Do you think the native inkjet dither will interfere with the halftone? Choosing 1440ppi, doubling the native 720ppi of the printer might help too.

Is there a way to modify the individual ink laydown? If I use three inks, for example, could I set the relative ink values to 50/40/10 or some other value instead of 33/33/33?

best regards,

Kees
zedonet
Site Admin
Posts: 2156
Joined: Fri Oct 06, 2006 8:02 am

Re: Halftone Printing Settings for transparency

Post by zedonet »

Hello Kees,

if you select "multi black" and enable three inks, the inks will be printed 33/33/33 percent. Currently there is no way to change this .

PrintFab bypasses all Epson driver software, the Epson driver doesn't interfere with the halftoning.
Post Reply