From: Judy Seigel (jseigel@panix.com)
Date: 09/07/00-12:23:44 AM Z
On Wed, 6 Sep 2000, Cactus Cowboy wrote:
> It's been a few years since I've printed gum. Is anybody out there making
> color seps on a computer, and printing onto clear film in a laser printer?
> Is this feasible, or am I only dreaming?
I have the impression that anyone doing color separation for the first
time would start now with computer, and that those who have done it and
have the materials to do it analog (as I did) would still prefer computer
if they had the necessary & could tolerate the learning curve. But doesn't
have to be on clear film. I laser printed with a 300 dpi printer that had
only 2 megabytes of memory (so nothing was more than 100 dpi), then waxed
the paper... it printed fine. Didn't look like a C-print, but that was the
idea. (The disadvantage on paper was that registering the seps was harder,
if you like to do that by eye -- as I do.
The problem with the laser is that it won't do more than about 8 by 13"
unless you get the oversize model for about $1000. Otherwise for gum I
don't see any advantage to the ink jet (though I daresay there is one and
someone will generously supply that info).
But on the topic of large negs for gum, I was at the printer today,
pestering them with MORE corrections (which they've been extremely sweet
about, as they're backlogged to the hilt anyway & now I'm off their back
on time) & topic turned to large negs. They'll do a neg from a disk for
about $20, 16 by 20", & I thought that would be interesting to try. I
assume Dan Burkholder will have that info in his book, but it's been a
hard summer.... I'm feeling weak. Will some kind soul suggest what
resolution I should ask for? And what resolution I should bring them on
the disk? My experience with gum from halftone is that the dotgain is such
there's little profit in a very fine resolution... but again, my
experience is limited.
I'm told that the most a scanner will scan (slide or flatbed) is 800 dpi,
& higher will be interpolation... So if I want to go from a 35 mm to 16 by
20" neg -- I'm going to end up with a LOT of interpols... I gather. This I
imagine would be an advantage to the analog... continuous tone being
continuous tone, though I daresay the platinum printer, for instance,
would not do 16 by 20" from a slide... (?)
best,
Judy
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