Creating Your Image

 

Images created on transparent or semi-transparent materials will work provided that the image is opaque enough to block the ultraviolet light that exposes the image to the plate. The following is a list of materials that can be used:

Hand Drawn Images

Substrate: Matt Polyester Film (Frosted Mylar), Textured Polyester Film, or other Transparent or Translucent Film.
Materials: Stabilo Pencils, Micron Pens, Technical Pens, Ebony Graphite Pencils, India Ink, Gouache, Acrylic Paint, Litho Crayons, Photocopier Toner.

Digital / Photo Images

Inkjet Transparencies, Laserprints on Frosted Mylar, Photocopies/ Laserprints oiled for translucency.

Working with Laser Printers

 

Although limited in size, laser printers are excellent for creating films and separations to be used with a variety of printmaking processes. Laser printers create the illusion of a continuous tone image with varying sized halftone dots, measured in Lines Per Inch (lpi). By default most black & white laser printers will print images at a much higher lpi than can be used for hand printing. If the lpi is lowered it will be easier to maintain a balance between the amount of ink that is needed to print the photo litho plate, and the space around the dots that is needed to hold water and repel the ink. To adjust the lpi of an image you are printing to a laser printer, you will need to place the Photoshop file in InDesign, which can control the halftone screening features of a laser printer. InDesign will also allow you to print larger images by ‘tiling’ them to the printer, so they can pieced back together and exposed to a photo litho plate.

 

Using Photoshop or Illustrator

Printing a film on a laser printer requires the use of a graphics application like Adobe Photoshop (bitmap/raster) or Illustrator (vector) and it is often easier to output the print through a desktop publish application like InDesign. Your Photoshop file must be converted to Grayscale Mode (If you are printing color separations you will need a CMYK file, or a grayscale file with either Duotone settings applied, or one or more spot channels).
Before you separate your files you will need to establish registration marks or printer marks.