HDPrint

and other screening types

Mihai Necsulescu - Zoom-Soft s.r.l. ROMANIA

About screening types

Halftone reproduction on printed paper with offset printing
technology is done with printing plates. The process is ON/OFF,
printing or not printing of ink by turning ON and OFF extremely small
pixels according to the output resolution of CTP. These pixels are
gruped together and form screens, very small areas define one
graylevel that will be perceived so by human eye due to interpolation
of viewing.
When these pixels are grouped together and form a geometric
figure like circle, ellipse, square, rhomb or even donat the screens are
called classical. These small geometric figures are never seen by
naked eye but stand at the base of any color printed image.
When pixels are not making geometric figures the screens are
called stochastic, but here are different flavors according to different
manufacturers.
Is also possible a mix of these technologies of screening.

 AM screening when the shape is modulated in amplitude or the

mathematical curve describing the raster dot is smaller or larger for
describing different shades of gray (or color)
Important characteristic is the shape, number of cells per inch or
centimeter and the angle of the shape.

FM screening, where the pixels are making different patterns that

look arbitrary, random or stochastic.

Examples:

Eliptical dot, good results at slurring and images do not have tonal jumps near
50% gray because the dot is not simetrical so the dot are touching only in one
axis first and then in the other axis.

Euclidian dot

Round dot

Rhomboidal dot

 Square dot type 1

Square dot type 2

micro-screening

FM screening frequency modulated

FM screening is totally different from AM screening:

FM do not have angles, do not make moire, do not interfere with image
elements, have a better reproduction od iamge details, are less
sensitive to register errors, images are clearer and most notable offer
an ink reduction between 3 and 15% compared with AM screening of
150 175 lpi.
BUT flat tints suffer from noise are more difficult to print and controll on
press, shadows are quickly plunged, and generally calibration and
linearisation is a little messy.
HDS or Harlequin Dispersed Screening is a registered mark of Global Graphics,
Staccato is a registered mark of Creo / Kodak, Randot X is registered mark by
Screen and Satin is a registered mark of Heidelberg.

They all look similar but with some notable differences

Coarse

Medium

Fine

Super Fine

What is RESOLUTION?

Is the capacity of an optic system to show clear and separate two adjacent parts of an
object or an image, pixels in our case for CTP.
More pixels per inch mean more resolutionand more resolution is better but sometimes
one single pixel will not appear on a plate or will not hold ink
when print.
And increasing two times the resolution mean 4 times larger output files therefore
more time to render, transfer and double the time to image...

Equivalence between FM and AM

valid for Harlequin Dispersed Screening from Global Graphics:
HDS Coarse = 150 LPI for posters
HDS Medium = +200 LPI, commercial printing
HDS Fine = +300 LPI not recommended due to calibration an
linearisation problems
These findings are resolution dependent!

New screenings XM
AGFA and CREO introduced the new HYBRID AM:
in highlights and shadows the conventional AM
screening is changing to FM screenings

From
www.creo.com

From
www.agfa.com

Benefits of the new screening metods of Hibrid or XM according to

Agfa and Creo:
AGFA Sublima XM is like using FM
screening in shadows and
highlights regarding the
rendered details
... does not generate the visible
noise as the FM screening does

XM (Cross Modulation)
Once XM reaches the smallest reproducible dot for a
specific press, it no longer makes the dots smaller.
Instead, it uses a patented method to take-out dots.
Even though the dots at the highlights may appear to
be random, you will notice the dots continue to align
along defined AM angles.

... transition between FM and

AM screening is around 8%
dot...
... is much easier for the
printing crew to work with a
screening where the smalest dot
is not going under 21
microns...

DM (Digital Modulated) screening or Auraia

from Hamiltonroad Ltd. UK
Invented 6 years ago by Andi Cave, one of the founders of
Harlequin RIP core, now free-lancer
The most advanced screening method existing today, is a
combination between all screening technologies, being most of the
time FM with AM accents
Started as a screening method for violet platesetters where the
output results are not as good as thermal or UV platesetters now
this screening technique is available for all platesetters.
Because it use small dots it show an ink consumption reduction
between 15 and 30%, depending od image content
Is similar in output results to HDPrint but in medium tones is noisier
as you may see in next slides comparation:

Medium tones

AURAIA or DM

HDPrint

Shadows

AURAIA or DM

HDPrint

ENLARGED
On plate

HDPrint

HDPrint

Quality controll of each and every plate

Zoom-Soft developed a special control
stripe that should appear on each plate
for monitoring the exposure
developping process to guarantee perfect
processed plates each time
Control stripe is very sensitive to minor
variation of the process without any
measuring device

- reading is done in a blink of an eye by the operator without any

device
- operator adjust the process of developping the plate accordingly to
maintain integrity of all small dots, including the smallest 16 microns
- HDPrint is possible only in a tight controlled environment showing
that we can reproduce on plate and print not only 1 99% at 200 lpi
but 0.01% and 99.99% at an equivalent of 450 lpi

HDPrint can reproduce on conventional UV plates whole range

between 0.01% and 99.99% at 450 lpi exceeding by far any plate
manufacturers technical specifications

HDPrint don't make miracles:

bad plates = NO HDPrint possible

Thank you for your time!

Zoom-Soft srl
phone: +40-21-410.06.75
mihain@zoomsoft.ro
www.zoomsoft.ro
Copyright Zoom-Soft srl 2014