Prepress Services in Brisbane

We are one of the very few remaining pre-press bureau’s still operational in Australia.

Film for screen printing
Film for Litho or Letterpress platemaking
Colour Separations

If you’re looking for pre-press services, we also offer contract proofs, barcode generation, colour tuning, photo re-touch, imposition and a few other things that you have probably never heard of.

The Product

Pre-Press Film is produced through a photographic process. Light sensitive film is exposed using lasers and processed using film developer and fixer in precise manner, to achieve dense (silver based) Blacks with very sharp edges. There is no grey zone.

Blacks typically have density >2.0 resulting in predictable printing plates and screens. Such density allows a wide over-exposure tolerance and traditional Bleed, Choke, Dot Gain, and Dot loss methods using spacer foils. These are techniques which cannot be done with toner or inkjet produced acetates, or transparencies.

Film exposure is by Screen Katana imagesetter with a maximum image area of 1100 x 550mm. Results are predictable, repeatable, and very accurate.

Colour separations and Halftone dots are an inherent part of the film making process and you can specify the dot shape, frequency, and dot angle or angle offset to suit your application. If you are unsure, we have standard angle sets and dot types that we have selected as most suitable for each print process and they are most likely perfect for your needs off the shelf. We have been doing this since the early 1980’s so we have got a pretty good idea of what you need.

Films can be stored indefinitely without loss of density and dimensional stability.

Pricing

Our Lithographic, Screen Printing, and Letterpress films are priced as follows:

A4 = $ 20.00 +gst
A3 = $ 26.00 +gst
A2 = $ 50.00 +gst
540x850mm = $ 70.00 +gst
540x x1100mm = $ 95.00 +gst

Size relates to the required image, any extra used for printers marks added to the image are included free.

Colour separations require one film per colour.

File Formats

Files should be supplied as print ready pdf.

We do have the ability to handle any sort of file format, but other file types may incur operator charges as they are not designed to be portable and almost inevitably need operator intervention.

Specifications

Please include film specifications with your order

If you don’t know, that’s fine, just tell us about what you want to do with the films and we can work it out.

But if you do know, please advise:

Type: Positive or Negative
Emulsion side: Litho or Screen emulsion
Screen ruling: In LPI (Lines per inch)
Dot Shape: Round, Square, Eliptical Euclidean.
Angles: Standard angle set is: cmyk -15/75/0/45 degrees
Offset: an offset is applied to each angle usually to find a best fit to screen mesh

When specifications are not supplied, our default screen rulings are 150# for litho and 55# for Screen printing.

Our default angle offset, dot shape, and angle sets, are standards that we are sure will work for the specified film type, but you are welcome to select your own.

Other work:

Imposition, re-sizing, manual trapping, colour bars, and any other operator intervention, is work additional to the film production process and is charged at an hourly rate.

Turnaround

Production time is generally next day
but please advise if you have specific time needs.

Delivery

Our standard courier supplier is “Fastway” or “Couriers Please”.
We are happy to organize alternate delivery via “receiver pay” systems, but there will be minor packaging/handling fee.

You are welcome to collect your film.
We have car parks available on Campbell street and our Jeays Street hardstand.