Producing Screen-print Separations from Epson Printers

Epson large format printers have often been useful for creating a high standard of screen-print separations. This has been true from the days of the Stylus Pro 3000 model, the venerable old workhorse remains to be viewed printing separations after 10 years of service. The 3000 and the 7000 & 9000 models used dye ink that has been suitable for a wide variety of films. The product range was replaced with the 4000/7600/9600 series that used Ultra chrome pigment ink and this required the development of a new film to give decent results - Agfa Select Jet.

 

The recent introduction of the Ultra chrome K3 printers 4800/7800/9800 and their close relatives 4880/7880/9880 and the 11800 was a retrograde step for printers of separations. The ink was developed to fit the gloss amount of photographic prints. Unfortunately, it is less suited to screen-print separations than the previous types. Epson has introduced the 4400 and 4450 range which uses Ultra chrome ink and these work well but you will find a number of the K3 printers that might be pressed into service as image setters.

 

The problem with the X800 printers is that they don't make a convenient ink droplet volume, the print is either weak and allows light through or fat and floods the film.

 

Colourgate tackled the problem by printing a proportion of yellow ink on the surface of the black. Yellow has another highest UV density of the inks. This can be a functional solution but because it doesn't look pretty it hasn't proved very successful.

 

Wasatch has produced an infinitely αγορα plotter more elegant solution - Epson heads are able to make a range of dots for different resolutions. Wasatch has utilized this to set down different droplet sizes next to each other in the exact same print. This enables the RIP to lessen the ink to the optimum coverage without additions and allows a variety of fine printers to be much more versatile.