Registering Separation Negatives Made on an Epson

[Dewey2]

Anyone have experience with registration of multiple sheets of Pictorico film printed on an Epson?

I'm making 3 color separation negs using the Piezography ink set and for my early tests I'm putting register bullets in the corners in order to align by eye and punch for pin registration after printing. In a perfect world, there would be a method of registering prepunched film at the point of insertion into the printer.

I've looked at the Epson 7900 computer-to-plate system, which has an alignment gate to run plates through in register. I'm a bit skeptical of this system, but then I have no experience with it. Anyone interested can look at this video at 6'30" to see how it works Epson Video Library - Epson Stylus Pro 7900 CTP System Frequently Asked Questions

I'm also considering retrofitting a punch onto the printer in order to manually punch at some point before the printer ejects the film.

Ideas?

 

[mark]

I have not done this on an epson but wonder if you could put registration marks on the image before it is printed. Make the canvas larger than the image, put the registration marks on it then print it. Burkholder's digineg method had you do this before sending to an image setter. Can't you do it with an epson too?

 

[Dewey2]

That's exactly what I'm currently doing. My goal is to find a way to avoid visual registration after the printing is done.

 

[Doyle Thomas]

Anyone have experience with registration of multiple sheets of Pictorico film printed on an Epson?

I'm putting register bullets in the corners in order to align by eye and punch for pin registration after printing.


Ideas?

This is not satisfactory?, it's what I do and I get good results. The key to doing what you want is loading sheets in registration. You could try scribing
some tic marks on the printer but that is still iffy. Using roll material however may do what you ask if the printer has an onboard cutter. Load the roll
and make a short print, then print your images with a fixed length. The width is already fixed. If all goes well, you can simply stack them using the edges
as a guide. Still, the next step is to varify registration

 

[Dewey2]

Thanks for the input, Doyle. A good 3 or 5 pin register punch will give quick and repeatable accuracy of 1/1,000 of an inch and that's my goal. I was shying away from roll film because I'm concerned with curl, but maybe what you suggest would outweigh that concern.

Still, a workflow that involves an integrated punching method would make me really happy.

 

[mark]

That sounds very expensive to me. Not putting your idea down but am wondering why what you are doing is not working? I am planning to head in the this direction but your post made me wonder about the accuracy of a quality hole punch for registration

 

[Dewey2]

Mark, are you saying that buying a punch is expensive? There's lots of punches on Ebay and elsewhere. A lot of print and separation shops have gone under or moved into different areas, so punches that were once over $2,000 can be found for a couple of hundred. Finding the matching pins can be a challenge.

Having a good registration system will certainly save on materials and time. For an occasional hobby it's hard to justify all the toys, but for a deeper involvement it seems to make sense.

 

[mark]

I guess I was misunderstanding. I thought you were saying you wanted a printer with an integrated punch system.

 

[gmikol]

To me, it sounds like he wants to punch his blank transparencies, and then ensure that they get fed into the printer so that they come out and are in register. Right?

--Greg

 

[Doyle Thomas]

he wants to punch after the sheet is loaded. punching then loading has the same problem with getting the blanks all loaded with the same registration. if you could build an assembly on the printer with some registration pins, then pre-punch and set on the pins, close the pinch rollers, remove the material from the pins then load, that might work.