PVG scores high at SGIA student competition

A team of three – Shubham Kharat, Pawan Khake, and Ashok Khade – under the guidance of Professor Laxmi Sakpal, used screen process to print the eight-colour job on 250 microns polycarbonate substrate, which is glossy on both the sides.

 

Explaining the tech-specs of the print job to PrintWeek India, Khake said, “The print job involved four process colours plus four spot colours reverse printed on the substrate. We used metallic silver ink and two-pack black ink as its base. This black ink has to be heated in an oven at 65 degree Celsius for 15 minutes.”

 

“And to add opacity, we used two impressions of white on the top. Besides this, we used the inherent gloss of the substrate to make the car glossy and applied matt varnish for the background. This varnish was applied from the front of the substrate.”

 

 

The silver car was printed with 120T screen mesh for CMYK and 100T mesh for metallic silver ink and white ink and the image resolution was set at 85lpi.

 

According to Professor Sakpal, the perfect use of silver metallic ink made it an award winning proposition. She said, “We anticipated that no other competitor would even try to print silver metallic ink. It was a challenge. The team browsed over 200 images and finally found this silver metallic car which had maximum coverage of silver. The grey coloured tonal gradations were printed with black ink instead of CMYK. Only the headlights and seat cover were printed using CMYK. All the intricate separations were done using Photoshop.

 

The students also received a special Academy Student Achievement Award and a cash prize of USD 500 to use towards their graphic arts education, while the institute received USD 500 to use toward its educational programme.  

 

The competition was held in Atlanta, the USA in November 2015.