Creating a Film Positive
Creating a Film Positive - Vellum Paper vs. Inkjet Film
What’s the best media for screen printers to use for creating film positives? It comes down to a matter of cost, time, and availability. There are a few other issues worth noting and we’ll discuss them here as well.
Vellum paper and inkjet film as they are the two most common types of media used for creating film positives by screen printers.
Let’s start with vellum paper… Vellum paper is a translucent type of paper. It works on bothe in types: laser printer ready and inkjet printer ready. The advantages of vellum paper is low cost, runs quickly through your printer, and is available in a variety sizes. If you are printing line art and medium sized text (14 pt. or higher), it works reasonably well. Not ideal for making screens with images that contain halftones, fine lines, or small type. Consider it a workhorse for making screens with run of the mill, simple artwork. Another disadvantage is vellum paper will shrink slightly when running through a laser printer and this will cause registration problems for creating film positives for multi-color screen printing. A tip for creating a nice, dark film positive that is easier to expose when burning a screen is to use a special spray on chemical that you apply to the printed image. Commercial toner darkener spray (believe it or not) WHITE SPIRIT spray will make the black image on your film positive much darker–making so much easier to expose and wash out the image on the screen. There are several manufacturers of laser ready vellum paper and our experience is that they all seem to work with similar results. the best vellum paper is 100% japanese vellum as there is no shrinkage, art2screenprint are the only importers of this paper.
Now let’s talk about DAYLIGHT inkjet film… If it were not for the cost and the increased time it takes to output the image through your inkjet-film printer and its cost, inkjet film would be a complete no-brainer. It produces film positives with completely opaque images that are easy to burn; and for creating DAY LIGHT film positives containing halftone images, it is the ideal medium. On the downside, the time it takes to output the film is of course dependent on your printer but certainly not as fast as you could output with a laser printer. For creating film positives for multi-color jobs, DAY LIGHT inkjet film is ideal, as there is no shrinkage. The major disadvantage of inkjet film is cost. It is much more costly than vellum paper. DAYLIGHT Inkjet film comes in sheet version, depending on the type of printer you have. There are several manufacturers of inkjet film for making film positives for screen printing. Our experience is that all brands do not work equally well. We recommend that you obtain samples of different brands and test them out before making a large quantity purchase.
The bottom, We recommend using both types of media. Vellum for non-critical, “run of the mill” single color print jobs and inkjet film for print jobs that have small type, tiny lines, halftones, or multi-coloure separations..
Thank you and enjoy, Annie Vragodos.
