Stochastic vs. Conventional Line Screen Pros & Cons (Part 1 of 3)

Have you been given the option of printing stochastic versus using a conventional 150 or 175 line screen? 

What are the advantages and disadvantages of the two?

Would your catalog benefit from changing your printing techniques?

 In my 25 years in the prepress industry, I have learned that changing from stochastic to conventional or vice versa can make the difference between good and GREAT printing.

What is stochastic printing, and how does it differ from conventional screening?

Stochastic screening utilizes a much smaller dot that is randomly placed throughout the images. Click here to view an up-close example. As a result, stochastic printing, images have a continuous tone feel. Also, with the smaller dot size utilized in stochastic screening, you are actually running the equivalent of a 285-line screen when using 25 micron or 365-line screen when running 20 micron. This is what contributes to stochastic’s ability to reproduce much finer detail than conventional screening.

Conventional screening utilizes a larger dot and is placed along a grid (creating screen angles).  This results in a more obvious dot pattern, and a rosette-like pattern. This pattern is most noticeable in your mid-tone areas such as flesh tones. Click here to view a up-close example.

Some of the clear advantages to stochastic printing are:

• Improved detail and definition
• Reversed text prints cleaner
• Improved shadow detail
• Wider color gamut

These advantages can also work against you. In later discussions I will address the potential pitfalls of stochastic screening and how to avoid them.

In my next blog I will address what steps need to be taken into consideration when running a stochastic screen in a web offset environment.

• Tags:
• color quality

Leave a Reply

Click here to cancel reply.

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website