Not sure where to post this, so...

[W. Frost]

...I'll try here next!

I work in graphics for a corrugated box plant that does a good share of labeled displays, but also some direct print/flexo jobs. I am constantly battling customers who supply art that would be perfect for a litho label, but insist it must be printed directly on the box.

I presently have no capabilities to output or show electronically what their art would look like with a 45-65 line screen. What would be the most cost-effective way to achieve a digital or physical mock-up that shows line screen, be it software or hardware?

I'm on a Mac Pro running Snow Leopard, CS4, Parallels to run (Esko) ArtiosCAD and am only outputting to an 8.5x11 HPColor 3600n LaserJet. I guess I'd prefer to get something on the software end, because we typically do most of our proofing to the client electronically.

Any thoughts? Thanks in advance!

Wendy

[gordo]

I presently have no capabilities to output or show electronically what their art would look like with a 45-65 line screen. What would be the most cost-effective way to achieve a digital or physical mock-up that shows line screen, be it software or hardware?

Well, you've got a RIP that can show the effect of the screening.
It's a bit awkward but you can do it in PShop. You can even create an action if you need to do this often.

The steps are:
1) Open the CMYK image in PShop
2) Copy each CMYK channel into its own grayscale image
3) Do a "mode convert" of each of the grayscale images to bitmap - for "Resolution" enter the resolution of your output device (say 2400 dpi), for "Halftone screen" enter Frequency of 45 or 65 lpi.* For "Shape" choose "Round" For angle choose the appropriate screen angle for each color (e.g. K=45, Y=90, C=105, M=75)
4) Copy one of the now bitmap images - say K
5) Create a new CMYK image using that image in memory
6) Paste the K bitmap image into the K channel
7) Copy each of the remaining bitmap images and paste them into the appropriate CMYK file's channels

Voila, you have your CMYK image in bitmap form showing the effect of the screening.

The screening is not the best (it will suffer from rosette drift (clear to dot centered rosettes and back again) but should be sufficient to show the loss of detail.

* Technically the Y should be at 108% of the frequency of the other colors - i.e. if the others are at 45 lpi the yellow would be at 49 lpi

best, gordo

[Stephen Marsh]

Off topic, but my first thought when reading the OP was:

We sell ******* boxes...

(language may offend)

YouTube - Regrets: Boxes