Printing Resolution

I'd suggest contacting a company that does photoplotting, as used for producing PCB artwork.

To be more accurate you'd contact a company specializing on pre-press service using photo media processing for offset printing. As rule any print house has such equipment as well. 24 or even much greater lines per mm is not a problem but might appear to be some costly. Diagonal error for A3+ sheet less than some microns.

Does offset printing work for anything other than paper? I called a couple places that do it for paper, but they said it would not work for plastics (ie. transparencies).

For offset pre-printing is to be applied photo films to make offset plate. But you need to order just a film(transparent) from digital prepress photo printer. You can order only a few as it supposed to be costly.

If your needs for films ordering are more significant I'd offer you to study flexography option (printing over package media, PVC or the like include).

"re: Does Offset work on anything other than paper?"

Yes it does. I've seen offset printers print on foil, plastics, etc. HOWEVER, these are usually custom designed printers that are built in as part of an integrated manufacturing process. I can't imaging a local print shop having one, unless maybe a custom sign printer?

I've printed on teslin, which is a type of flexible white plastic. It isn't a far stretch from printing on teslin to printing on a clear plastic film that is fairly strong yet flexible.

I Hope this helps,

MorePower

Using the PCL (Printer Command Language) it is possible to print a 1 dot thick line. On a 600 dpi printer it would be possible to draw at least 200 lines per inch.

Also note that some transparent material has a print and back side.

I've had similar problems printing on transparency with inkjet. As Hendrik says, transparent material with a print and back side could be the answer to your problem. The side for printing on is 'rough': the ink adheres better and in the right place, unlike the slippery side.

You might want to check with the supplier to find the right 'grade' of roughness for your fine scale printing.

There are probably any number of photo houses that can do this for you. There is a company in Los Angeles area that has made sinewave rulings for me with a spacing of ten lines per mm (8x10).

Hello vainqueur:

Welcome to you by the way! Ask anything and someone will be able to help from previous experience or searching.

You mention you produce clear media with lines?

How many copies do you need of each lot of printing and, are they always the same?

As has been said by all so far they offer several different ways to proceed. Caramba mentioned the conventional printing transparency process. Extremely accurate, and if you want several hundred sheets over a period of time, it would be worth thinking of seeing about a plastic clear medium which is printable. Unless you have the medium and have to find a way of printing the fine lines as you say.

You can get some idea of the accuracy of photo-lithography by the fact it is the chosen medium by which electronic circuits are printed. I know they do not print down to micron widths, as the final product necessitates, but, none the less they do have to be and are very accurate indeed.

There is certain detailed costs which you may not have to repeat every-time you ask for a print job to be done, if it is possible. What I am thinking of is the cost of the printing plate which actually fits either onto a round lithography press, or you can use them to print on say a local College or University owned and run flat bed printer. It would be more suited to small runs as there will be virtually no waste on the clear plastic.

As another person said, and I am sorry for not recalling his name, but the printed side has a slight Fresnel roughness for the ink to bind to. If your sheets are smooth both sides you will be able to get this roughness etched onto each sheet in a separate phase from the printing of the lines. I say that,...........I still am looking for companies to do it for you.

What size do you usually print?...............

I am also thinking that it may be possible, if you want just a couple of sheets of one design, to get some photo-sensitive clear film, and, expose it yourself as you would in any film printing process, or get a transparency made and take your clear sheets to them to be 'exposed' photographically? I am not sure on how sharp the lines would be in that process, but it is another way to check and extra choices. It will be cheaper than printing litho' as there will not be any waste. It will also be pretty quick, though you may have to get a small stock built up as it can take a few days to get these photo-prints done. But if you deliver the film and the clear medium to the photo lithographers yourself, you can arrange to wait while the few you need are exposed and developed...........Just a thought

Can you let me know your thought at what I have said so far please? It will help when I start searching.

Take care and I hope you find a way in the end!.......

Happy new year.................

"I am also thinking that it may be possible, if you want just a couple of sheets of one design, to get some photo-sensitive clear film, and, expose it yourself as you would in any film printing process, or get a transparency made and take your clear sheets to them to be 'exposed' photographically?"

Years ago, I had need of a grid with much narrower lines than I could draw; I used an ordinary drafting machine to make an original at 4 or 5 times scale, then walked into the local community newspaper's office, and asked for a negative to be made. Their camera would hold a full newsprint sheet-sized piece of film, and the copy board was the same size. It was trivially easy to scale it up or down by as much as 8:1 or 10:1 in a single step; this could have been repeated, multiplying the ratios. The system could accept smaller film, so that there wasn't much waste, and they developed it and handed it to me, dry and ready to use, in only a matter of minutes. Putting the negative against a second unexposed one in the camera back, and photographing a white surface (out of focus is good!) gave me a contact print positive, emulsion-to-emulsion. It didn't hurt that I knew quite a bit about the process, and could explain what I wanted/needed, and the fact that this was a SMALL company with direct communication among the people was a very good thing. I took care to always arrive AFTER their daily paper went to press, when they had the most free time, and used that for prototyping circuit boards the same way (did my own etching in baking dishes). Their plate developer used UV, which was an excellent match to the needs of my photo resist.

Thanks for all the great input,

First of all, I am using a printer that uses toner. Sorry for the initial ambiguity.

Also, as to the pre-printing for offset printing idea...I called a few printers in the area and they made it sound like what I was asking for was not possible. Maybe they just weren't thinking clearly or perhaps my lack of knowledge is limiting the communication. I know for sure that at least one of them did offset printing. Too bad I'm not in LA, then I'd know right were to go ;)

The comment about inkjet printers is very interesting. I have this printer which I will test out to see if it works for my application. I never would have thought to try it since it's a pretty cheap printer. Always good to get other's input!

babybear:

It's hard to say how many I'll need at this point. I would say 100 or less, but I could be wrong. That number could potentially go up a year from now. If I found a method that required me to purchase more, I wouldn't necessarily rule it out, though. I would rather consider all options at this point.

As to the printing plate you mentioned...is that somthing I should contact the University printer for, or does that come from somwhere else?

I have been printing on 8.5"x11" transparencies and then cutting pieces out of 3"x4".

I had initially tried to find a supplier for photo-resistive glass plates, but was not able to find one that was still in business. Are you aware of a source I could contact?

I see the term photo-lithographer posted a few times in this thread. What type of business is involved in this practice? It's not something I see in the Yellow Pages, so I'm guessing that I just don't know enought about this subject to be useful.

Morepower:

The gratings I am producing have, for example, 0.5mm line thickness and 0.5mm gap thickness, thus making a grating of 2 lines per mm. Hopefully that clarifies my situation. I will try the inkjet printer I mentioned above as per your suggestion.

I'd go for a photo-based approached. PCB artwork used to be produced by sticking black tape on film, at 2X or 4X final board size, and having it photo-reduced (same approach as Ron described in #11).

I don't know whether any of the repro places still do this for PCB artwork - it's almost exclusively done in software now, with e.g. Gerber file output to a photoplotter - but if you can find anyone with the right gear, they should be able to make you a 2ndary master by photoreduction, which can be kept for future production runs in any quantity you need.

My mistake - I misread your clarification (2nd post), and I totally missed the link to your printer. You have a GREAT Ink Jet Printer for your needs.

People are talking about the "Rough Side" of transparencies. The roughness is actually an absorbent coating and it is quite obvious. I've used corn starch with some success and paper often uses clay. The only trick is knowing which way to set it in your print tray so the right side gets printed. There usually is a guide, you have a 50% chance of getting it right and it is very obvious if you get it wrong the first time. Usually print side is down but not always. This is key!

Next come printer settings, either in your application (so they are always applied) or in your print driver (fullest access to features):

- Once you are done testing for positioning, getting the right paper side up and such, use MAXIMUM DPI MODE. Avoid any type of halftoning or rendering, such as ReT (edge enhancement), as it will blur your edges on purpose

- If you have a lot of patience, make sure your image is at least 1200 DPI. I do not know if 4800 dpi provides any benefit, but as long as you select Black Only you may have enough time and memory to experiment with this. Your printer very well may have true 4800 resolution in one direction (ink jet had makes muliple passes across the paper, or the "fast direction".)

- Set both your image and your print driver to BLACK ONLY. If you can covert from RBD to CMYK, do so and then manually set CMY to zero (but don't get hung up on this). Just setting everything to Black only will reduce processing and print time dramatically.

- Related to the above, you MIGHT experiment with GRAY SCALE versus BLACK ONLY mode as one way to possibly further reduce bleed by lightening your lines, but hold off on that for now.

- Be SURE to select "Coated Transparencies" as your media! Even some of the lowest cost ink jet printers detect this automatically, but best to be safe. What this will do is pump out a lot of ink and give you the highest (darkest) OD possible. Unfortunately, there is probably no way to over-ride this even if you do want to lighten your lines.

- If one direction doesn't work, rotate your source image 90 degrees and try again. If you still get Moire or some other type of "beating patter", experiment with the printer settings. If that fails you may have to use a filter in a higher end imaging application such as Photoshop or Corel.

TRANSPARENCY MATERIAL: HP uses a very different ink spitting technology and even ink composition than Canon. I can mail you a wide range of transparency samples I've collected over the years if you want, but DO NOT buy a large pack until you find the right one. If all you have is photo paper, you can do much of your experimentation using Glossy Photo Stock. It isn't identical but it is close. Canon transparencies may work better than HP for you needs, since most stock is optimized for OD and color fidelity, not edge quality (think PowerPoint Presentations). Kodak makes a fine general purpose paper, as does Epson. Try them all, borrow small supplies if you can. Unlike a heat or pressure fuser there is no reason not to reuse transparencies as long as you can keep them from rolling (use less ink when experimenting).

I hope this helps. I print 2 dimensional bar codes on an HP printer with far less resolution than you have, and I do it in DRAFT MODE! I truly think you are in for a nice surprise here! PLEASE let me know if this works out for you. If you need a K-only image that might prevent halftoning and moire, I can run it through Photoshop for you.

Good Luck!
MorePower

Thanks for the detailed guidelines. I will be experimenting with it either today or tomorrow. I'll let you know what happens.

What do you mean by K-only image?

Sorry, "K" refers to the Black ink in the CMYK standard, which is what most printers use. Some have a 5th or 6th ink to achieve even higher qualities, usually a shade of gray and, after that, a shade of orange, which allows a printer to get at almost all the PMS colors one can distinguish. Most printer companies just keep copying each other versus breaking into a new market, so they jeep increasing the resolution and motion control of the printers. You wouldn't believe what is coming once the market for fully personalized, high quality, print-on-demand and even print-on-product imaging matures.

I will digress further, just in case I am making sense here and it helps identify a solution.

CMYK is a common standard for creating "Process Color". Process Color is the digital version of "Spot Color", which is simply pre-mixed paint, ink, dye, etc. Not very practical for a digital press that can vary each pixel on a page. With CMYK comes the need for image rendering algorithms to "combine" those few fundamental colors to achieve a different color. Think of a mosaic, it works just like that. Big paper, little dots and a little help from the eye and brain to interpolate it all into what looks like a real color. Zoom in and all you see, though, is various groupings of those same four ink colors. "Spot Color" is the analog alternative. It involves loading a printer with a very specific color of ink. A low-cost printer can achieve literally millions of unique colors through an image rendering process, usually "Halftonining". Halftoning is also used with pure black ink printing presses to achieve various shades of black, from Gray to White. This is how newspapers used to print photos, using line screens to break the black into varying shades. Think back to the mosaic. Many dabs of paint go into making a mosaic (or tiles). As you move back (or make the mosaic smaller), the human eye hits its limit and integrates the dots together, thus forming what looks like smooth images and a blending of colors or shades. Once the brain decides to pitch in this happens even sooner, since the eye is actually a matrix-based integrator of dots also -- but I won't go there, the possibilities get creepy.

Here is the relevance. Ink jet printers mostly use 4 ink cartridges, Cyan (Light blueish), Majenta (Hot Pinkish), Yellow (Yellow) and Black (er.. K). As you'll see, B wasn't available anymore so they gave Black the term, "K". CMYK is unlike RGB, the Red, Green and Blue colors in a CRT that can create even more colors than most printers can achieve by overlapping discreet spots of those three colors. But ink can't be superimposed that way, at least not with great latitude. Halftoning is a different form of pixelation that places the dots of ink next to each other in a grid of various sizes, depending on the desired results. The larger the grid the more the colors but the lower the resolution, if you see what I mean. The creation of the grid is called halftoning, and it is used to create millions of shades of color using that same, simple mosaic-like effect. Printing presses use a line screen, and newsprint presses can achieve photo quality with a line screen as low as 100 lines per inch. a monitor tops out at 70-80 dpi, or at least they did back when the standards were created (smaller than today's monstrousities). It takes a lot of processing power to manipulate all this resoution also, of course. DELETED WHOLE SECTION HERE, REALLY FELL OFF THE DEEP END..

Here's the point. If a halftone uses an algorithm to simulate a specific color by placing C, M, Y and/or K "spots" of ink in a matrix, say miniscule pixels that are comprised of 9 almost microscopic dots of ink across by 9 dots of ink down, then you can get a specific PMS color, such as Kodak Yellow, but you take up the same space as you might otherwise have put 81 spots of black ink OR have used to increase the resolution of a black-only image, which is all you want - black on white lines! THUS, if you cannot over-ride halftoning, you are reducing the effective resolution of your ink jet printer by whatever the grid size of the halftoning algorithm you are using. If you have a 6 x 6 halftone and a 1200 x 1200 dpi (DOTS of ink per inch) printer, you can only print a line every 200 "dots" per inch or 1/6th the capability of your printer. I believe that is why I have seen ink jet printers achieve such amazing results - I am talking about using papers that contain the ink dots to remain exactly in place, just barely touching the next dot or empty space, and of course over-riding halftoning. THAT is what I am proposing you do. Just think what one could accomplish with today's low-end printers if they bypass the renderers and use the right paper or transparency.

NOTE: Try using normal mode instead of the highest quality, and then use a thicker line if it doesn't come out dark enough. This may produce better lines for you or it may not, but it is worth a try I think. This is because in high quality mode one generally is putting down so much ink that the printer automatically make two passes for each raster, shooting the even numbered dots on one pass and the odd dots on the next pass for instance. This gives the ink a bit more time to dry and be absorbed into the paper, thus reducing bleed and smear. You won' get this deep into the control system to control it other than to try to fool the printer using a lower quality mode, I think. Maybe you can also foil its transparency sensor, as it will automatically dump more ink and invoke halftoning if it senses a transparency. This is standard now, but you can foil it if you try. (Yes, I know this is crazy complex, but they are just things to try if at first you don't succeed).

Speaking of failure, this is the only way you might encounter image growth or misalignment, which someone pointed out could be an issue with other types of printers. I think they are right but mostly with drum-based laster printers and especially roll-based fusers.

I'm sorry. I guess I miss ink jet and imaging science after so many years away.

Bonus pap: Here is more evidence of potential success. All printers now have signatures in them such that any print or copy can be traced to the equipment that produced it because, by over-riding the halftoning, the printer places a special type of glyph (in this case an image/pattern that is unique to that exact printer) on every single page. The human eye can't see it, but it is clear enough to survive at least three duplications on the same equipment and will show under a scope.

Can you see why I think you can print your line patterns? With an insane level of difficulty, sure, but without challenge there is no progress. I am thinking about writing an program that enables such hyper imaging as I type this but I haven't hiton a useful enough app yet so I can't stop.. Technology begets innovation, not the other way around. Now all you have to do is create your own test patterns, learn to coat plain transparencies (try corn starch) and mix your own ink (water and dye), and you can save time and make extra money by selling test images at a cost of just pennies a page. Conceivably ; ).

MorePower

Nice one, MP.

Here's a suggested explanation for "K", from a Wikipedia reference:

1. ^ The "K" in CMYK stands for key, as in four-color printing, cyan, magenta, and yellow printing plates are carefully keyed or aligned with the key line of the black key plate. Some sources suggest that the "K" in CMYK comes from the last letter in "black", for instance Mark Galer and Les Horvat (2002). Digital Imaging: Essential Skills. Focal Press. and Simon Jennings (2003). Artist's Color Manual: The Complete Guide to Working with Color. Chronicle Books. However, such explanations are likely inaccurate, plausible inventions of authors unfamiliar with traditional printing technology. Mark Gatter (2005). Getting It Right in Print: Digital Pre-press for Graphic Designers. Laurence King Publishing.

I did some initial testing to see what this method will offer. I created a test page with various line densities ranging from 2-6 lines per mm. The document had both vertical and horizontal lines to determine which was more reliable. I downloaded a trial version of Coreldraw to make sure that I had appropriate software. Here is an overview of the settings that I used:

• K-only color for the lines
• Black ink only in printer and image settings
• "raster entire image" set to 600 dpi
• "maximum dpi" used in printer control panel (info box says 1200 dpi after enabling max dpi)
• output bitmap color "grayscale" (black and white was not an option)

I had neither photo paper nor ink jet transparencies on hand, so I started out using normal paper. I know this is not going to give the best indication, but I figured it would be a start. The results were as follows:

• when the lines are horizontal, there are fewer artifacts in the printing
• line densities up to 5 lpmm can be printed effectively

I then used a laser printer transparency and the transparency setting available in my printer controls as another non-ideal medium. The two transparency settings on the printer are "HP Inkjet Transparency" and "Other Transparency." I tried them both with the same results:

• Again, up to 5 lpmm could be printed effectively
• The darkness of the lines, however, was less than desirable

Would using the correct transparency improve the darkness? I wouldn't expect it to simply because the printer settings wouldn't change at all, so why would it put out more ink? Is there another method to increase the line darkness.

For inkjet printer, as I said, it's possible to add some 20-30% for magenta and cyan to make black "deeper". Here's need to perform experiments for dot gain factor reducing.

For laser printer you could use two transparent media as printed out from the same file and then putting one over another. In coreldraw's print menu of choose "prepress" section then check "registration marks". It'll help you for two medias accurate positioning. It looks some abundance and expensive, but I've used this way to cope with lack of density.

I'm afraid any photo processing is better off either. Flexographic printing would suit your needs, but I am not aware of prices scale in US for this kind of service.

I've been looking closer at my printouts and will add a bit to the results:

• There is some Moire in the 3,4, and 6lpmm, but none in the 5lpmm...odd
• Adding 20-30% C and M slightly does not significantly increase the darkness of the lines. I am still printing with "black ink only." Were you suggesting that I print using color ink and actually use C and M?
  

Yes! For ink jet, the paper is EVERYTHING. It will print MUCH darker lines and they will stay put even if you run double-passed and shoot two pixels on top of each other (tricky but possible).

I can't emphasize this enough. If the paper is controlled and affordaboe ink jet printers could be far better than laser. The issue is that all must be designed not to foul the print heads if someone puts in the wrong (smooth) paper. Those precautions are what you are attempting to over-ride, and I think you are close.

You must get some ink jet transparencies and even photo paper (cheaper and could suffice for testing).

MY RECOLLECTION HERE IS UNCERTAIN, BEWARE. BUT WHEN YOU BUY COATED PAPER, I THINK XEROX' INK JET TECHNOLOGY IS CLOSER TO HP THAN CANON. Youy may as well buy by price, though, since you're guessing.. Costco is a good source but big box office supply stores may offer smaller quantities. Kodak and Epson strive to handle all printer types. HP and Canon still duke it out with their proprietary core technologies and they respond very differently to the same paper. Is there a way for me to mail you a stock of paper? What are the rules in that area, I wonder..

YOU ARE SO CLOSE, PAPER IS THE NEXT STEP FOR SURE (more detail, below, as to why -- optional reading, I know I am verbose):

Ink on a smooth or non-porous surface will spread quickly. Ink on a porous surface that is not intended or is not effective for ink by some coincidence could be even worse, but I doubt this is the case for transparency material. Think what would happen if you printed on a paper towel and you will get my meaning. The porousity could be lateral and not vertical, which would cause the ink to quickly bleed across the paper instead of down into the paper. We used to study these things and the level of control truly is remarkable, well within 1/600th of an inch dots can be contained and even stacked!

I am very surprised you have achieved 4 lines per mm with plain paper. KUDOS!

(Moire can be tricky, hard to anticipate and hard to defeat without special software. You may find it easiest to just manipulate your image. This is where coated paper will be useful).

Eric

One more question with regard to your last post. You mention that I need to make sure the image is set to at least 1200dpi. Is that something that needs to be done in the software. I am making a test image in Inkscape vector drawing package.

I've fallen behind on the posts a bit, busy day. Specific to this question, I am not familiar with inkscape but the application appears to work with objects (vectors) which are "ideal". For instance, you can define and then cut, paste and manipulate a theoretical line of any width. You then have to "render" the image each time you update your display (monitor) and each time you print. The display is often fixed or defined based on the monitor you are using, but the rendering must be selectable to accomodate different types of printers from a low resolution B&W printer used to print fast drafts of work in progress to higher end printers that show more detail or handle larger sheet sizes to image setters to create plates for offset and litho and even complex commands to control pen and ink plotters. This is where you want to look, either in the print driver itself or in the software's rendering setup perhaps. Sometimes the same printer can be controlled in different ways, in some cases letting you select the resolution it uses and in other cases dummying it up to a few options such as "Draft", Normal, High, Best DPI, etc. Make sure you select B&W Text as your image type, otherwise you may spend unnecessary time on image processing or memory limits may put a ceiling on your available resolution, depending on how things are designed. You can do this initially with plain paper, then coated paper and finally "Glossy Coated Paper". Don't waste your transparencies yet.

NOW, once you max out your image by varying resolution, you can try other ways to eke out better quality, especially since you have a vector rendering softare package. I would start by varying the image rendering parameters. If your software uses RGB mode, convert to CMYK and make sure the first three colors are all zero (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow). Try to over-ride any halftoning, both in your application's renderer and the print driver. You could easily 4X your quality by eliminating unintentional halftoning or other image enhancement algorithms such as ReT (edge enhancement, or a type of feathering to reduce bleed between different colored inks). Your goal is to just send a straight and uncompressed bitmap to the printer, the highest it will handle without getting fancy on you and adding artifacts. Definitely turn off compression if you have diagonal lines. Darkness is another parameter that invokes halftoning..

Get a good magnifier, even a 10-20X can show a drop of ink or a line that is one drop wide (a few microns). All of the above will get you to the limits of your system, starting with fast prints at 300 dpi to slowwww prints at whatever they claim as their highest TRUE resolution. This is lower than whatever resolution the printer states, as they use various rendering algorithms to create predictive halftones that simulate a higher resolution such as 4800.

NOW you should start experimenting with expensive coated transparencies. The fact that they are bumpy, by the way, is neither good nor intentional. The coating is for absorbancy. The bumps negatively effect the quality of images blown up on an overhead projector, at least to some extent. Don't judge a xpar by its feel.

This may help all this make more sense. If you create an image at 300 dpi and print it at 4800 dpi, you have very little control over where it throws ink to simulate the higher resolution. You are far batter off rendering it to a plain bitmap comprised of single pixels at the highest TRUE resolution your printer supports (say 1200 by 2400) IF you can turn off halftoning. I am not clear here, but I think if you render to CMYK in your software and zero out the color "plates", your printer will not attempt to halftone the image even if it is not able to be over-ridden.

I cut my teeth at Xerox, for 15 years. If you get close but foiled due to the driver I may be able to help you find a Xerox engineer willing to modify a driver to pump through bitmaps directly. 10 years ago I would have been sure of that, 20 years ago I would have had the resources to do it and 30 years ago I would have been able to code it myself. But I've stayed in touch with a lot of Xerox folks and they love challenges like this.

Gotta run for now. I hope this level of detail helps you, even though it is quite speculative. Image quality is often maximized by sheer trial and error. THAT is how people get phenomenal results from low-cost printers, to be honest. It's more art than science.

Eric

"The gratings I am producing have, for example, 0.5mm line thickness and 0.5mm gap thickness, thus making a grating of 2 lines per mm." For what it's worth, in film photography, this is only one line pair per millimeter. Digital imaging is routinely described as "lines per mm", doubling the apparent number; however, if it is rasterized, the figure is even worse, by a factor of the square root of two (1.414...). In any case, this is quite low, and should be simple to obtain. I was routinely obtaining several hundred line pairs per mm back in the 1960s, and I had reason to get some items printed at roughly 100 lp/mm in the 1970s. This was a commercial printer, which used lithography to run a high-quality magazine, but this was beyond many of the commonly available processes then.

Look for "Lithography" or "Lithographers" in your local yellow pages, business-to-business directories, or on-line. "Offset printing" may also find what you need. [by way of background: my father was a lithographer, and became the president of a local for his union, the Amalgamated Lithographers of America, which later merged to form the Lithographers and Photoengravers International Union: I have some reason for knowledge in this field]. Photographic methods are used to produce plates, but you may not even need to go that far.

Local trade schools, community colleges, etc. are potential sources for such plates, and for reducing the original to final size if needed. Locally, we have a litho shop which prints almost exclusively on clear substrates, making such things as bread wrappers, labels, and similar packaging items; they can print photo-quality items if needed, but their setup is for volume.

Consider the clear labels that Brady, Avery, and other sources offer for use in laser or ink-jet printers. These can be found in a variety of sizes; you may need to stick them onto something such as glass if you need more stability, but the cost of making them is small. They even offer programs to set up to make multiples per sheet, often on CD right in the pack.

Hello vainqueur:,

Firstly, I thank you for your reply post!

If I can just say, you will have to forgive me as I have not been near a printers or print finishing 'shop' (actually often time a factory or large room out back of a shop they may sell pens, paper, and have a sign in the window "get your printing done here").

Often times in and around Cities and Towns where there is a lot of offices, the most likely type of 'print shop' you will see is a store where they will take your finished 'artwork' (that is what it is called), and they then can take a photo, (which is more likely to be a 'memory file rather than a real plastic contact sheet) and or enlarge or reduce a size from say A3 to A4 or smaller. I do not know what you have in mind when you think of 'photo-copy', but these days they can do any colour or combination of colours, at any size and guillotine the final sheets to your finished requirements. They do a whole range of things from calenders to A4 headed paper for factories. Sort of taken over from the kind of printers I worked in where a person would come in for his firms initial ream of printed headed paper, and onto Christmas cards, and books.

The kind of quality you can get now goes up to intaglio, which I believe is a kind of raised print. I was in one recently and they had machines that started at A0 down to whatever size you wanted. I think for the moment I will concentrate on these 'photo-print shops'. The other ideas in my first post were to see what you wanted to do and what was 'possible' to do? And that was why I suggested the various methods from taking photos and getting a contact sheet to full blown printing.

From now then, unless you say otherwise I will talk of 'Photo-Print/Copy Shops'.

These places often have a drawing board and can get your Art-Work' ready then put it through the processes necessary to get your final product. They usually have special pens which can do lines down to 1/10th mm. Or they can do it all on computer and send it directly to the finishing copier.

Your requirement is pretty detailed, considering it is just a straight print job.

Where are you because I could search for places in your locale? Or you can take an example of what you want with you and ask if they could do you a sample of what is possible as you wait?

If you have a piece of art-work that must be clean, not creased, and exactly how you want it to look when finish. You can just take that along. But if you can either do the drawn art-work yourself (usually a minimum of A4 '297 x 210' or similar. Or they may prefer to draw the art-work in A3 or larger and reduce it to the final size.

It may be easier to do this, and you can do your art-work at the larger size if you wish, but get advice on what size your local photo-print-shop wants or needs to start. On a larger sheet the lines can be as you want .5 mm or thinner, but they are easier to draw as the lines can be 2mm to 4mm apart and then as the sheet is reduced the lines end up spaced as you want. .......Remeber though, if you want .5 mm line and spaces, and you need to start at A3, for easy working as you draw, you will need to use pens with twice the thickness because it will be reduced once to A4 . So a pen size of 1 mm.

Once you have your art-work keep it flat and safe by keeping it in an envelope lined with stiff card. You simply take it to your local shop and they can print one or 1000. You pay per copy. Though if you want 1000 you will get a cost reduction!

=====================================

To clear things up with regard to my print machine description from my first post. You would look for 'Photo-Lithography', or 'Lithe' shop. There is a link below to the techniques of photo=printing............

The College or Uni printing idea may or may not be possible. But, yes they would be able to get your printing plate ready, if you took that route. And to get the plate ready they will need or may be able to do for you, the art-work. They will then take a photo, from which they will make the copper printing sheet.. But you can get rid of the cost of two of the processes by using a Photo-print/copy shop.

I hope this is a help. I hope my explanation was clear to you. If you want an idea of the processes just search for photo-print, or photo-copy.

http://www.google.co.uk/search?num=50&hl=en&lr=&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=photo-print+techniques&spell=1

Take and and keep in touch......Happy new year!...........

Thanks for the thorough description. I will look for companies which provide this service in the Lansing, MI area.

what about simply using microfilm?

http://microfilmequipment.com/index.html

Interesting idea, I am not very familiar with it. The products I see on that web site seem to have a max resolution of 300dpi. Based on my limited understanding of microfilm I would expect this to be much higher. Am I missing something?

I'm sure there is ways to achieve much higher resolution with photographic reduction. Even back during WWII, simple equipment could put 20 pages into a microdot, the size of a period on a typewriter. Unfortunately, I don't know the equipment either. I've had laser printed circuit board artworks photo reduced by 2x back in 1990.. just at my local newspaper office.. and I'm sure that it wasn't the highest technology. After that we could reproduce films (transparenies) with simple exposure of contact film (b&w) in a darkroom.

SHORT RESPONSE: If you further specify your requirements you will get far better advice. Don't give up on simply upgrading your local, on-demand print solution without a fight!

LONG RESPONSE (sorry about that, "too busy to be crisp"):

I still think you are at risk of over-complicating your solution, losing your current level of on-site convenience and abusing your budget. Also, keep in mind that you do not have to use a half-tone image if all you need to print (in this one pass, anyway) are solid black lines. Doing so will require a far higher resolution printer than you otherwise need.

How much finer than two lines per mm to you need to go? For some reason I assumed you were trying to just double or triple it without having the lines blend together. The new ink jet printers and transparency film have come a long way, placing drops of ink just a few microns wide at the true resolution of the printer.

I still think you risk being directed to unnecessarily high-end, expensive solutions. The suggestions each of us are providing appear to have much to do with our own background and too little to do with your application (no offense to anyone, I am guilty of this for sure!).

At the risk of smothering you with (another) sea of suggestions, I suggest you further describe your goals, parameters and constraints (N suggestions below). If your resources are limited and you print an entirely unique image a few times a day, you really could benefit from some upfront research (per the specifications you requested), a bit of experimentation and then acquiring a very low-cost printer to retain your local, on-demand capability. My biggest questions:

1. What is your printing material? This is critical and I assumed you were using handy transparencies and, thus, are flexible: Is your transparent material specific or can you use any clear substrate?

1a. IF you are limited to a specific material, what are the smallest and largest dimensions (e.g. greate than 4" x 6" but less than 8 1/2" by 11" is ideal). Also, what is the material and can you describe the nature of its surface? Is it smooth and shiny? Offset printing and lithograghy can print on anything from glass to toilet paper and, as one responder suggested, you may be able totreat or etch the surface to absorb ink and radically reduce 'bleed'. This is assuming that the bleeding of ink or toner really is your issue. It may also be an artifact of your image processing or the fusing process your printer uses, etc. Some laser printers squish the paper between two hot rollers with a film of oil to keep the toner from sticking. Others use flash fusing, which melts the toner with a bright light that literally boils the dark toner. Ink jet just lets the ink dry, either by stalling the printer between prints or by using high quality ink jet paper or ink jet specific transparency film that has a clay or starch coating. The coating accelerates drying AND locks the ink in place, virtually eliminating bleed. Again, this is a critical constraint.

2. What are your quantities, costs, funds, number of minions and the frequency with which you print unique images? Biased by my background I focused on ink jet as a low-cost, rather low-end solution that retains the same level of on-site convenience you experience today. However, others people's suggestions to go to a professional printer are clearly easier. If you print one image a year then delete this now. There are many local print shops that can accomplish extremely fine line printing. This is expensive per "image" yet inexpensive for each additional copy of the same image, since the cost is in the creation of the master, the trip to the print shop, etc., yet once the 'offset printer' is set up it spews out yards and yards of paper as easily as one sheet.

3. Line characteristics and your imaging capabilities. PCL is a relatively simple print control language with unlimited image and printer controls IF you have the means and ability. Alternatively, if you have an imaging software application such as PhotoShop ($600) or a lower-cost variant ($40-$80), you can convert any image to a bitmap and from RGB to CMYK (most printer's 4 color components). If your printer and print driver settings don't do this directly you can then force all three print color components to zero (Cyan, Magenta and Yellow) resulting in a true bitmap at 600, 1200 dpi or whatever your printer is capable of handling. The key here is to over-ride the half-toning process used to produce 'photographic images', since what you want is a line drawing. In this way you can achieve much finer lines than a pen plotter, essentially at the printer's resolutions and, if you control your print material and your fusing process, you should be able to limit 'bleed' to one pixel on either side of each intended pixel. I have done using a full process color ink, 600 dpi jet printer that ran at 40 pages per minute and it worked up to 100 ppm. I have a patent that involves imaging to just every other pixel at the edge of each rendered object and/or major "process color" change, and it virtually eliminated ink jet bleed on NORMAL copier paper without an observable degradation of even photographic images. Thus, if you need 3 to 5 micron lines spaced just microns apart, you can accomplish this with remarkably minimal degradation to edge quality and darkness of your line. The neat part is that the feathering is easily accomplished without programming, assuming you are just printing B&W lines.

Anyhoo, those are the areas I would specify before selecting an approach.

Hope this helps,

MorePower

"We are all victims of our experience" Author Unknown (by me, that is)

Here is another suggestion: Send us the make and model of the printer you've been using and either forward a test image or create some specs for one so some of us can try to determine the boundaries of whatever setups we can readily access.

I am glad you plan to try your inkjet printer but I fear you may get a false negative. At the very least please note the components involved, including printer, ink cartridge number, transparency make and model and your image source.

Speaking of image, I think the reason my inkjet idea is not getting any interest is that I am assuming a far less challenging image than the others. You said your images were 'LIKE' Ronchi Rulings but that you just now ran into issues at 2 lines per mm. That is a HUGE difference and, if you truly plan to print Ronchi Rulings you are in for serious Moire issues with any halftone imaging process.. I am not biased by any technology or mfg., I just like simple solutions. But the challenge is still unclear and thus confounding meaning collaboration here, in my opinion.

Can you give me the make and model of the various printers you have access to, especially the one you've been using? And, before I lose you, I still am not clear on your daily/weekly volumes of new images or the number of sheets you tend to print per image. I am sure it varies, but just generally. If there is a blizzard can you wait a day or do you need to run to the printer ten times to print ten different images? Or can you wait until spring, go to the printer once and have him mail you 1,000 copies? Ludicrously large range, I know, but cost per system, cost per page, quality and convenience are so inter-dependent. Maybe you need 3 solutions: What you have, something that gets you 4-5 times better resolution and a film-based solution for true Ronchi Images..

Let me know if you would like me to create and print some samples. I don't want to become a nuisance, but I am eager to help for three reasons. First, this is more fun than doing taxes. Second, I want to improve my embarassingly low standing on this forum (last place) as I am building a par course for the scouts and will need tons of help. Third, I just gained tremendous respect for all those who are offering their time and expertise to help you. KUDOS to each of you and whoever created this forum!

MorePower
"No amount of genius can overcome a preoccupation with genius". Albert Einstein.

The machine we have at my lab is a Xerox, but I will have to wait until I am in there tomorrow to determine the exact model.

The ink jet printer that I am going to try is an HP Deskjet D1455 (there is a link to the specs in an above post). The black ink cartridge is an HP C9351A. I do not presently have any transparencies on which to print. Perhaps you could recommend a couple varieties to try.

When I say that the printing I am doing is like Ronchi Rulings, I mean exactly like Ronchi Rulings. The reason for not simply purchasing those from a manufacturer is that it is cost prohibative to do so in large quantities.

If you've chosen inkjet printer as decision and if your media sheet format is A4 I'd advice you'd better to get A3+ inkjet printer and download your file being landscape oriented. For well calibrated printer I'd add for both CYAN and MAGENTA 30-40% for achieving better off result in terms of blackness' density, but this option should be previously tested.

As one more option I'd suggest try out on-line prepress service. I've not any idea how it works in real life(we've not ones in my land for printing press), but I'm supposing in US it should be a quite affordable and reliable thing. I have not had enough time for web surfing so here's just a few links I could find:

http://www.makestuffhappen.com/PRE-PRESS/

http://www.hotfrog.com/Products/Prepress-Services

http://www.careydigital.com/index1.html

http://www.designfirms.org/services/prepress/

Just take a glance. You can write them or call. If they'll requesting a specially prepared file to be send, just let me know, I'll try to find way to help.

Hello vainqueur:

Hope your ideas are making progress!

You may not want or need them but I have put together a few sites with printable acetate pages. There is a couple of site with thin label in acetate also. I recall you said the finished product was about 4" 100mm square?

Good luck............................

Rippedsheets.com Acetate Labels for laser and inkjet printers Laser or inkjet labels in clear acetate so you can print laser labels or inkjet labels with no die charge for Short Run Jobs.

Printing on acetate? - UKScrappers

You can only print onto inkjet transparencies (acetate). The ink doesnt stick to anything else. Also, it has to be printed on the rough side, so if you want ...

Cellulose Acetate Film on ThomasNet.com

Welcome to the premier industrial source for Film: Cellulose Acetate. ... include printing of bar code labels using computer, inkjet & thermal printers. ...

Take care and any chance of a pic of the final product?

Thanks for taking the time put those those links together. They look quite useful.

Hello vainqueur:

Now you have decided on an inkjet printer, even if you should have to buy a new one, which I doubt, depend whether you can feed the stiff acetate through the right way round. You may have to get an A3 printer to allow feeding landscape? Anyway you have a few people helping you will that. I do not want to tread on an toes.

Whatever though, it will be cheaper and a lot more convenient than going to your local print shop?

Good luck...............

Hello to all here.

Can I just say the ideas and help on this thread have been outstanding. Well done all!