Is a half-laser dot ever printed? Is there a way to force a laser
printer/imagesetter to print half-dots or dots partially
'knocked-out'? For example, all dots become truncated by a thin fine
line

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Request for Question Clarification by joey-ga on 06 Aug 2004 22:51 PDT

Do you mean to ask if a laser printer, at its highest native
resolution (likely 600 or 1200 dpi for most) can print just half a
dot?

If not at the printer's highest resolution, you could simulate this
with a halftone screen in photoshop that's, say, half the resolution
of the printer, and then cutting out half of each dot and printing it.

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Clarification of Question by myq-ga on 06 Aug 2004 23:52 PDT

I think I understand but can you clarify further please?
You say 'cutting out half of each dot' but wouldn't that imply you
could see the effects of applying screen in photoshop? Or do you mean
that the dots would automtaically get cut in half? But is there a way
of somehow knocking out part of one dot (say a 'green' dot) based on
an overlapping 'red' or other dot? What I really want is to be able to
do at the dot level (for different channels c,m,y,k) what is normally
done in line work in spot colors where overlapping objects are
'knocked out' at the places of overlap
thanks for your input

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Request for Question Clarification by joey-ga on 07 Aug 2004 00:45 PDT

I'm not the most adept at playing with channels in Photoshop . . . but
if you have a high-enough resolution image (so that you could stand to
lose some detail), you can use the Filter: Pixelate: Color Halftone
option.  Use the smallest radius possible (4 pixels is the smallest
allowed).  It will then create separate screens, one per channel at
different angles as necessary.

You can then see the separations and the associated dot patterns and
overlap, and deal with them as you like individually.  Again, I'm not
the expert at working with channels, but I believe you should be able
to create cutouts as necessary, maybe by selecting black or white from
one channel and then moving to another channel with that selection and
painting black (or white) into it, to remove sections of that
channel's dots.

Note that b/c 4 pixels is the smallest maximum halftone dot size you
can work with in this filter, to get a decent result, you'll need an
image with a resolution significantly higher than you normally would.

Sorry if I'm running you around in circles here, but to be honest, I'm
not exactly sure what your goal is in all of this, so I'm just trying
to offer ideas to simulate a result based on your exact question.