CAPABILITIES & SERVICES > Screen Printing

NEW! Roll-to-Roll Screen Printing

Empire now offers the convenience of roll-to-roll with the outdoor durability of screen printing. Our new press, the Kammann Eco-Press, produces decals with an in-line manufacturing process and cures inks with UV LED technology. Some material options include: vinyl, polyester, BOPP, polycarbonate, lexan and paper. Contact a representative today for more information.

Quality Built on Experience

The quality of Empire's screen printing is built on experience. Utilizing the latest techniques and equipment in color management, our skilled craftsmen build quality into every job. Paying special attention to these details, Empire consistently yields impressive results. After almost 50 years in the industry, we have perfected the art of screen printing.

A Little History

Historically, screen printing is one of the oldest and simplest forms of printing. A screen is created with fabric stretched over a metal frame. The substrate (material) is placed under the screen. With a squeegee, the ink is passed across the top of the screen and the ink is forced through the open areas onto the substrate below.

Printers use CMYK--cyan (light blue), magenta (pink), yellow, and black inks--when printing four-color process work. Mixing these four colors together, combined
in various percentages of dots, creates an entire spectrum of colors including
those used in color photographs.

Reducing Moiré

When printing CMYK, each color has its own screen or plate, so each color has its own halftone. To improve print quality and reduce moiré patterns, each color is output at a different angle. The C/M/K plates/screens are set 30° apart, which produces a rosette pattern. The yellow, being less noticeable, is set 15° from the other colors.

Typical angle sets for digital, offset or flexo printing:

Black = 45°, Magenta = 75°,
Cyan = 15°, Yellow = 0°

Typical angle sets for screen printing:

7.5°, 37.5°, 67.5° Set or 22.5°, 52.5°, 82.5° with the yellow set 15° off magenta or cyan.

The reason for this is that screens are made with mesh, offsetting the angle as to not interfere with the mesh, causing mesh moiré.

LINE COUNT (LPI):

From a distance, a viewer cannot see the dots in an image because line count gives the impression that there aren't any; the human eye no longer sees dots, but rather a complete image. According to the SGIA's "Rule of 240," the optimal LPI (lines per inch) is found by dividing 240 by a given viewing distance (in feet). For example, if the image is to be viewed from a distance of 2.4 feet, the LPI would be 240 / 2.4 feet = 100 LPI. Empire's standard LPI is 92. Other examples of when to use different line counts: