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Navigator for Screen Printers
Navigator RIP and Workflow are ideal for screen printers
Navigator RIP and Workflow for Screen Printers
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Xitron’s Navigator RIP and Workflow are ideal for screen printers, whether they are working with film or direct-to-screen systems. Navigator combines the flexibility and productivity of fast, accurate rendering with workflow access and control from any Mac or PC in the shop. Submit jobs, preview rendering accuracy, remap inks, even re-run separations without ever leaving your workstation. For quality second to none, Navigator’s built-in calibration capability delivers precise, halftone results and consistent, repeatable screens every time. Post-RIP viewing means inspection and approval is quick, easy, and painless.
Interlocking Screens and Simulated Process Printing
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Maximize color fidelity and clarity while preventing registration issues
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When preparing artwork for screen printing, working with blends can be frustrating and time-consuming. Traditional screening can reproduce much of the desired effects, but can often create color shifts, color contamination, or the garment color or white under-base may show through.
How Interlocking Screening Works
In Example 1, you see a PDF with the five colors noted in the output preview. There are three Pantone colors, plus black and white. When you zoom in, you can see the blend between the Pantone 185 red ink and the Pantone 113 yellow ink.
Example 1
If you RIP this job with standard halftone screening, the blend is created by reducing the size of the Pantone 185 dots, while increasing the Pantone 113 dots and the dots will print on top of each other as shown in the Standard Screening example. While the blend is smooth to the naked eye, a closer examination shows that the garment color or white under-base will show through due to lack of ink coverage.
Standard Screening
One way to counter these issues and easily create a faithful reproduction is to employ interlocking screens for simulated process printing. Depending on the application being used, this can sometimes be tedious and time-consuming. However, by using Xitron’s Navigator Workflow, prepress operators can get great results simply by creating the proper workflow steps. The workflow automatically inverts the screening for each job, then allows the operator to select and release either a standard separation or an inverted separation that will “interlock” with a standard separation.
With Interlock Screening, the transition from Pantone 185 to Pantone 113 is seen — and the transition appears as smooth as the original artwork. When you zoom in, the interlocking pattern is clearly visible with 100% ink coverage. There is no show-through of the garment or white under-base and there is no color shift or color contamination. Using interlocking screens in jobs with blends increases the color fidelity and clarity while preventing registration issues at the same time.
Interlock Screening
