ok so ive been playing with halftone settings in Illy, but dont fully understand it.  so for whatever process color i have in a file, it prints in halftones.  knowing that ive been printing out versions of whatever image in the different process options in the print dialog box.  so first ill try it in black.  if the results arent good then ill try a magenta version and so on until i get one that will work.

then when i find one that looks good, i try to adjust the settings of that color to see if i can even further improve the halftones.  i have the degrees set at 22.5, the shape at ellipse, and the only adjusting going on is the LPI.  however, when adjusting the LPI i dont seem to be getting different results.  the halftones come out looking identical no matter what LPI i choose... is this right?  i was under the impression that increasing or decreasing the LPI would adjust the size of dot in my halftones, but that doesnt seem to be the case...

what am i missing?  is there an easier way to work with halftones in Illy?  or is it all done in the print dialog box?  if so why isnt the LPI adjustment changing the halftone dot size?

any help is appreciated!

Linkback: http://boards.screenprintersopen.com/index.php?topic=7709.0

What RIP are you using? It may be overriding your changes. On regular paper try 20 or30lpi these should be noticeably larger than
50 or 60lpi. If not you will have to figure out how to set up your RIP so it doesn't over ride you settings.

ok so it appears that the Accurip settings were overriding the Illy settings.  i found all of that stuff in the "how do you want this printed" tab of Accurips "file > setup" menu.  the settings were: 40 LPI, 22.5deg, and ellipse.  the deg and shape are updated to the Accurip settings in the Illy print dialog box, but for some reason the LPI still shows at 60... however changing the LPI in Illy seems to not change anything.  that leads me to believe that the Accurip settings are indeed overriding the Illy settings.

this all makes much more sense now.  i never really messed with the setup in Accurip until recently when we bought some refillable ink carts and some ink.  we found that this ink does not last near as long as the epson carts that came with our printer.  so i went into the Accurip settings to adjust the ink droplet weight to cut back on ink usage.  before all of that i would just hit print from Illy and Accurip never actually opened on my desktop... so i never really tinkered around with its settings.  i now realize that when working with halftones that the setup in Accurip is essential.

thanks!