Advice on Process Colour printing on a Gerber Edge FX.....

[mxkid1979]

Hey Guys,

Sorry if this has already been asked, but I am looking to take on some new jobs on the Edge FX I have, that will involve taking hi-res images and printing them onto vinyl. I understand that I have to use the CMYK foils as process, yet, when I attempt a print - the result is very grainy indeed, almost pixelated.

I make sure that the image fill is on the highest setting, I am however printing on 300DPI and no the 300x600DPI - "Does this make a difference?"

I have read that you can change the LPI to help, but as you can possibly tell I am a complete newbie to this, and would love some advice on how to get the finished article as crisp as possible, as I am looking to produce some decals that are relatively small (i.e. nintendo DS wraps)

As said, any help would be greatly appreciated on this.

Many thanks in advance

Gareth
mxkid1979

 

[Bill Modzel]

The Edge is not a continuous tone printer and you will never get an image that compares to an inkjet printer. 300x600 will make a difference, you're getting twice as many color ppi than at 300x300.

This is a decal machine and you cannot expect to do photography on it.

 

[MCV]

Here is a response I received from Fred a while back when I asked the same question:

There are a few things I've found to be helpful.

• For images, use the STCPhoto halftone and set the LPI to between 60 and 70.
• For vectors, use the Classical Dot halftone and set the LPI to 53 for work with gradients and 70.7 for work without gradients. The higher the LPI the smaller the halftone dots but the greater the tendency to band.
• Avoid using the automatic color management. Instead, manually select the output profile named Gerber Edge II 300 DPI CMYK from the list in GSPPlot.

You may have already read the same advice, but I printed a couple things with the advice above and noticed a huge difference in print quality. With that being said you are still going to get a somewhat pixelated look. IMO the FX does what it does great I love mine for what I use it for, but printing photo quality graphics in my opinion is not one of them.

 

[omgsideburns]

Love the edge for solid colors... process colors not so much, but what MCV reposted from Fred really helps a bit.

 

[mxkid1979]

Guys, Many thanks for the responses here, I am going to give them a try to see if the new methods improve the results (which I am sure they will do!) I will let you all know how I get on, and see if I can't get some pictures up of the work we are trying to achieve!

Thanks again...


Gareth

 

[iSign]

on that profile copied from Fred's post... you wouldn't use that one, if you use an EdgeFX, and if you are going to print 300x600 dpi (which of course you should)

there should be one for 600 dpi, & also for the FX