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Screen-Printing vs. Ink-jet
Searcher7:
I know that the big disadvantage of screen printing compared to ink-jet printing is the cost, but I've never seen screen printed cabinet artwork or a marquee that had much in the way of detail.
Is this because of the limits of the screen printing process?
Photo quality can only apply to inkjet prints, so is it the common consensus that we can get better visual quality from traditional digital printing(for our arcade game related purposes)?
Thanks.
Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.
Searcher7@mail.con2.com
Mike:
Depending on where you get the screen work done depends on how many colors they can do. Alot of screen printers do 4 color processing. The reason you don't see a lot of screen printed stuff for arcades is that to set up the screen involves a lot of cost. So if your not doing a large run it isn't worth it. All the artwork for my arcade came off a lightjet. Which isn't an inkjet printer but is a type of digital printer. It works very similar to developing photos. This isn't advantageous for people though either unless they have extremely high resolution pictures. Like 2400dpi. The file images really need to be about 500mb to 1gb. And the pictures have to be clean. I started my donkey kong images with pictures off of here. http://www.arcadecollecting.com/caga/ but as nice of a job as the guy did, my friend who is a graphic artist still had to spend about 8 hours cleaning up the lines on the images. When you print on a professional printer every little mark will show up. So thus why most people use home or kinko inkjets which can give you decent quality with low resolution pictures and pretty much no set up cost. Eventually when I get around to it I'll print my marquee on an inkjet to show the difference.
PoDunkMoFo:
--- Quote from: Mike on March 09, 2003, 09:56:37 am ---Depending on where you get the screen work done depends on how many colors they can do. Alot of screen printers do 4 color processing. The reason you don't see a lot of screen printed stuff for arcades is that to set up the screen involves a lot of cost. So if your not doing a large run it isn't worth it. All the artwork for my arcade came off a lightjet. Which isn't an inkjet printer but is a type of digital printer. It works very similar to developing photos. This isn't advantageous for people though either unless they have extremely high resolution pictures. Like 2400dpi. The file images really need to be about 500mb to 1gb. And the pictures have to be clean. I started my donkey kong images with pictures off of here. http://www.arcadecollecting.com/caga/ but as nice of a job as the guy did, my friend who is a graphic artist still had to spend about 8 hours cleaning up the lines on the images. When you print on a professional printer every little mark will show up. So thus why most people use home or kinko inkjets which can give you decent quality with low resolution pictures and pretty much no set up cost. Eventually when I get around to it I'll print my marquee on an inkjet to show the difference.
--- End quote ---
Did you re-up the cleaned artwork to CAGA so others might benefit?
As far as what a screenprint can do all the original art on classic cabs is screenprinted.
The real limitation of screenprinting is cost. Small runs are just cost prohibitive.
:)
Mike:
Nope I didn't send it back into caga because It is too large. Both files run over a gb now. Plus it was cleaned up for the specific printer I was using. If anyone has access to a lightjet I'd be more than happy to send them the cleaned up images.
neuromancer:
--- Quote from: Searcher7 on March 08, 2003, 08:47:45 pm ---I know that the big disadvantage of screen printing compared to ink-jet printing is the cost
--- End quote ---
My boss used to do fine art with screen printing. He would make the screens with a photographic process, and print 7 to 10 colors.
The only advantage is being able to use any color you can mix, rather than being restricted to 6 or 7 on an inkjet. It makes the most difference if you have large areas filled with light colors.
If you have the screens and an enlarger, it only costs pennies to set it up, if you don't count your time.
Bob