Dispelling the Myth of Dot Gain: Embracing Tonal Value Increase for Superior Prints

Erik Draven

Updated May 14, 2024 16:04

Where did the fear/misunderstanding of print Dot Gain come from? Truth is there is little to fear regardless how this falsehood began.

Modern day printing would not exist without halftone use. Some consider the halftone one of the greatest advancements in printing throughout its long history, so when someone suggests avoiding halftones I would suggest ignoring that advice.

Tonwertzuwachs is German for Tonal Value Increase or in today’s terminology, Dot Gain. Tonal Value Increase is actually a good thing! It’s needed to achieve advanced colors on press. Don’t avoid it, embrace it. Advanced image color separation software such as Spot Process® Separation Studio®, for example, control on press dot gain to produce highly colored images from a limited number of screens. The key is control.

Simply put, dot gain has an undeserved stigma. While Tonal Value Increase sounds so much better, it means the same thing.

Getting more colors from a smaller or limited set of colors because screen print presses have specific numbers of print heads is what smart printing is all about and the reason these systems were invented as a replacement to Chromolithography used by such printers as Currier and Ives back in the late 1800's.

Single-angle printing is superior to multi-angles (rosette pattern) and help the overall cleanliness of the print. Some printers claim to use special and secret angles in order to eliminate moiré are not being truthful and hence why they don’t disclose their secret. In actuality they achieve what they discern as an acceptable moiré.

Printing using the Flemenco style (single-angle) of halftone alignment accepts up to 40% press gain without the loss of detail or the corruption of color. The reason is there is a lot more room between each spot (halftone) allowing for the physical gain of the ink that eventually increases tonality and color. With a rosette pattern (multiple-angles) the space between each spot is greatly reduced due to the angle shifting. Screen print presses are high saturation devices that top out around 33%. Flemenco style printing never over gains allowing for very deep clean runs with little to no downtime. Rosette printing has trouble with as little as 15% dot gain. Presses have for a long time been able to hold tight registration and printers of all fields should have converted back to Flemenco, but they followed old thinking without asking why? The proof that Flemenco is as proper today as it was way back when is why high-tech digital presses print using single-angle (continuous) configurations and not rosettes. Mystery solved, pass it on.

Do things right to get better results. Stop using multiple-angles and use only one angle (22.5 is advised) for all styles of printing. Don’t run from what you fear or don’t understand. Freehand has been a proponent of single-angle printing for many decades and have converted more screen printers and industry consultants over to Flemenco.