# Capillary film vs. emulsion?



## Rizzo (Nov 22, 2006)

Capilary direct film.... is this a better alternative to Screen emulsion ?


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## CrazyTeeShirts (Oct 31, 2006)

Depends on your situation and the printing job. There are a lot of pros and cons to both. The biggest advantages I've personally noticed are:

Film gives a more consistent thickness which is important in controling color saturation and hue shifts in halftone printing.

Emulsion seems to have a longer durability over time.


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## Rizzo (Nov 22, 2006)

Tks my friend, now just by answering that you have pulled up another question I always wanted the answr for, when I want to print an image say....black lettering with shading around it, it it a one color or it bomes a 2 color print with a half tone? but when you look at the image its like black getting fethered at the edges.


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## Rizzo (Nov 22, 2006)

is capilary actually easier to paste on the screen, looks a very troublesome job, is there a way to do it?


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## CrazyTeeShirts (Oct 31, 2006)

Rizzo said:


> Tks my friend, now just by answering that you have pulled up another question I always wanted the answr for, when I want to print an image say....black lettering with shading around it, it it a one color or it bomes a 2 color print with a half tone? but when you look at the image its like black getting fethered at the edges.


I'm sure there are many different ways you could do it but I would do it as one color using a higher mesh screen and creating the halftone in illustrator or photoshop like this design which uses one screen


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## CrazyTeeShirts (Oct 31, 2006)

Rizzo said:


> is capilary actually easier to paste on the screen, looks a very troublesome job, is there a way to do it?


Practice makes perfect  Both can be difficult when you are atarting out. I remember getting emulsion all over the place when I was figuring how to coat screens at first. After awhile it becomes second nature. Personally I'm better with emulsion but that's since I use it alot more.


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## Rizzo (Nov 22, 2006)

Hi Crazy,

Tks for that. appreciate it.
When you create pics (is the one you sent) dont the screen get exposed on dark areas and also the shades without showing much of a difference, in other words the whole of the image that you sent will be totally black (like a sillouette?)


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## Rizzo (Nov 22, 2006)

I guess the cost factor affects the choice too huh, capilary is far more expensive than a layer of emulsion. I should try it more often as washing off things when using emulsion takes more time that I can put to good use (designing and stuff) do u agree?


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## CrazyTeeShirts (Oct 31, 2006)

Rizzo said:


> Hi Crazy,
> 
> Tks for that. appreciate it.
> When you create pics (is the one you sent) dont the screen get exposed on dark areas and also the shades without showing much of a difference, in other words the whole of the image that you sent will be totally black (like a sillouette?)


\
A halftone is created by dots on the image which creates an effect of a lighter shade to the eye by less ink coverage. the lighter areas of the design is actually comprised of dots of black instead of a solid image. This is why a high mess screen is used, to be able to hold the emulsion around those dote. I really don't know if it is the "proper" way to create it since it was conceived thru trial and error. This probably explains better http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halftone


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## CrazyTeeShirts (Oct 31, 2006)

Rizzo said:


> I guess the cost factor affects the choice too huh, capilary is far more expensive than a layer of emulsion. I should try it more often as washing off things when using emulsion takes more time that I can put to good use (designing and stuff) do u agree?


To be honest, I never paid attention to the cost since for me it was spread across a lot of screens but film is more expensive. 

For retail sales the time spent reclaiming is minimal to me because of the number of prints I get from each screen. Normally I'll just make new screens when needed until I have a large stack to reclaim and do them all at once, custom jobs get thrown in with those so I don't really notice the time involved that much. It doesn't seem to be much difference in the time to reclaim but I just might not notice.


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## Rizzo (Nov 22, 2006)

I got the answers well enough, from your explation, tks alot. is there a special option/tool on Corel or photoshop/illustrater to get this halftone effect?


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## CrazyTeeShirts (Oct 31, 2006)

Off the top of my head for one way to do it in photoshop is to create a layer for the part of the design you want, convert the image to greyscale then select image->mode->bitmap then select halftone screen as the method and then play with the settings from there.


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## CrazyTeeShirts (Oct 31, 2006)

If you search the help file for halftone there is probably a lot of different ways to do it in both programs. It's just a matter of getting combination of the right printout and screen mesh for the particular design. I'm hardly an expert on photoshop and usually just play around until I get what I want. I know there is probably a correct way to do it but I'm not good at reading instructions


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## Rizzo (Nov 22, 2006)

Tks buddy......... that helps.


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