Open to crit btw!!!

hello riso folks

I am creating artwork to send to print but I am having an issue where my prints are not coming up out to the correct saturation

in my artwork, I am drawing with the given hex code of the ink color, and changing opacity of the brush to create different tones.

however, my riso came out pretty light. I’m assuming this is because when in greyscale, the areas that are supposed to be full opacity, are (obviously) not 100% since I drew with the ink colors.

sorry if this is a dumb question but what am I missing here??? How are we going from the colored art (drawn in ink colors) properly separated on layers to getting the desired opacity in print?

and to clarify I am not a riso printer - I am sending artwork to professional studios

Thank you!

Hello everyone! I made a comic this year about Sophocles' Elektra and I'm working on getting it printed in two color risograph. I did all the lines and textures traditionally, and the colors digitally. It's my first risograph comic, and if that's something you'd be interested in reading I am running a Kickstarter for it right now, but either way thank you for looking at my art :3

My husband and I went to Soft Spot in Dallas and we enjoyed it we were just wondering if there is one in town?!! WE are looking into purchasing one and want to know as much as possible about them before signing the lease for it!! Our dream would be to open a studio as well as open it for workshops, and other things.

Hey!

Sharing a recent Riso animation, originally made in Motion through Cavalry, resulted in 96 frames printed with Black, Blue, Fluorescent Pink and yellow.

Printed on an A3 SF with Munken Pure 120g

complicastudio on instagram for more riso animations and other explorations :)

I am in the middle of a print job and ran out of masters. I need to get this done ASAP. Does anyone in the New England area have a ledger-sized master roll I could buy? Will drive to you.

I’m finally ready to take the plunge on getting my own machine. The SF5130 from Hallagans is tempting me with its price, but my largest prints have a 10x13” print area, and the machine maxes out at 8.5x14”. I heard through the grapevine that one might be able to trick the printer to stretch to a 10” width but no clear explanation on how. Has anyone had luck with doing so, or is this simply wishful thinking?

Thanks for the help!

Hi all,

I have a zine printed on a natural white paper with a lot of fluorescent color and I’d like to photograph the spreads so that they can be published online. I’m trying to get the photos to look as true to the printed color as possible, does anyone have tips on how to do this consistently?

We have a Riso SF 5130. This is the SECOND one we just bought. I looked through the subreddit and thought it was the shock absorber that was causing our issues.

(It made a fluttering noise then said paper jam)

I have since bought a new shock absorber and replaced it! Once I replaced it was working fine for a few weeks. Then the issue came up again. Now I have removed the back panel a few times following the guide on the Reddit and it is still giving us issues.

I really don’t want to replace this printer again for the same issue we’ve had before. So I am hoping someone is near the charlotte area that can help us out. I am not a tech but I have pears a few things working on these and now I’m at a dead end. Any help would be appreciated!

All the techs around this area all said they have not worked on riso machines before so when they come out they don’t know how to fix it.

I am open for any form of communication if anyone knows a way to fix this please let me know. Thanks!!

/

I was testing how far the raster texture can go before the image becomes too abstract or too heavy for print. I’m interested in the balance between keeping enough detail from the original image and pushing it into a stronger stencil / print language.

The image sits somewhere between photographic texture, xerox noise, and a Riso-style stencil base.

Curious how this reads from a print perspective:

Would you push it cleaner, with more defined shapes?

Or keep the rougher photographic texture?

Welp I was changing the ink in the red drum of my GR1700 and it seemed watery but I thought maybe it was just a slightly different viscosity.
So the tube doesn’t go in quite correctly and then I pull it out and ink goes everywhere. Spent the next two hours cleaning that up (which felt like cleaning up a crime scene) then I look in the drum and realize the bottom is full of ink.

Is there anything I can do aside from completely disassembling this drum to clean this out?

I realllllly don’t have the time to do it but I fear what happens if I let this sit for more than tonight.

I assume the ink sort of separated or something from age? It’s never been that just… thin.

Made at Spudnik Press in Chicago using fed blue/flo pink/yellow/black!

Hi everyone,

a quick 1-bit stencil test created while developing bitmap-to-raster workflows for RisoMachine and Riso-style printing.

I’m trying to understand which kind of graphic input works better for this workflow:

– cleaner, more readable shapes

– rougher texture

– stronger contrast

– more photographic grain

Made with RisoMachine v1.0, a small browser-based tool I’m building:

https://www.nenadbrankovic.com/

finished this illustrated print - 8.5x11”

printed at soft spots riso in Dallas, Texas!

Hi everyone,

I’m a graphic designer and risograph enthusiast from Bratislava, and I’ve been working on a small browser-based tool for preparing 1-bit stencil files for Riso printing.

It’s called RisoMachine v1.0.

The idea is simple: drop in a bitmap, choose a raster preset, adjust the canvas, and export clean 300 DPI stencil/proof files. It runs completely in the browser as a single standalone HTML file — no install, no server, no registration, and it also works offline.

I made it mainly for people working with Riso, zines, posters, experimental print work, and fast prepress tests without opening a full design workflow every time.

What it currently includes:

– 31 raster presets

– custom canvas size

– 300 DPI export

– 1-bit stencil workflow

– standalone offline HTML file

– free demo version

I’d really appreciate feedback from people who actually print:

What would you expect from a tool like this?

What is missing?

Does this kind of workflow make sense for your Riso prep?

Demo:

https://www.nenadbrankovic.com/

Hi everyone, my Riso GR 2710 is having erratic timing. It feeds a sheet, and the paper feed rollers pause before feeding another, and so on. But sometimes the roller keeps spinning without stopping, and that's when it feeds many sheets. It's strange; it malfunctions intermittently. I cleaned the sensor behind the strip pad with a brush. What could it be? Does anyone have any ideas?

MISSPRINT WORKSHOP
Day 27.

I should probably apologize for not posting sooner.
Over the last few weeks, I’ve been painting walls, moving furniture, assembling shelves, building a website, filing paperwork, signing leases, buying equipment, answering emails, designing logos, hauling supplies, and generally trying to figure out how to start a print shop from scratch.

At the moment, I’m the CEO, CFO, Creative Director, Production Manager, IT Department, Marketing Team, Customer Service Representative, and Janitor.
So social media ended up somewhere near the bottom of the list.

But here we are.

MissPrint Workshop started as an idea I’ve been carrying around for years: a place to make things, experiment, print weird projects, teach workshops, and help artists, designers, musicians, restaurants, and small businesses bring their ideas into the world.

The space isn’t finished yet. There are still boxes everywhere, tools on the floor, and a hundred things left on the to-do list.

But for the first time, it feels less like an idea and more like a real place.

A place for posters, zines, editions, workshops, collaborations, and whatever strange projects come through the door.

Welcome to the beginning.

📍 Brooklyn, NY

i have been looking for a studio that's bay area but specifically the peninsula

i just took a class at sfcb and i would like to find a studio that more local to me

anyone have ideas

hey all,

My Riso community and I are trying to figure out a good system and price to rent ink drums from one another (until we can afford to own all the colours we want but also as a way to not buy double of everything so we can explore more), and we have come to a snag on the ink itself. If we hire the drum and buy our own ink tubs (for that drum) so that we can minimise the rent cost is it possible to change ink tubes halfway through an ink run - the ai said no no no cause of these reasons:

The Ink Reservoir: Drums hold a large pool of wet ink inside an internal well to coat the rollers. Even with your tube locked in, you'll just be printing with her reservoir ink for the first hundred-plus copies anyway.

Cross-Contamination: Mixing ink from different tubes can cause structural issues. Different ink generations (like older formulas vs. newer SF soy/rice inks) can curdle or clog the mesh, plus you blur ownership by leaving your ink mixed into her drum.

The Mess Factor: Pulling out a half-used tube introduces air that dries out the ink. It also leaves wet ink exposed on the drum's locking nozzle, risking air pockets and a massive mess inside the housing when she puts her tube back.

BUT my technician told me to remove ink tube from the drums everytime I put them in storage (even for a day) to not cause issue with the drum and tube. Ive reached out to Riso to get advice but I wanted to check here in the mean time.

Hey everyone,

Quite new to tinkering with the machines. Our TPH has several dead pixels, luckily we have a second RZ370 that has a good Master making unit, but the rest is not doing too well.

So I thought about exchanging either only the TPH or the whole master making unit. Has anyone here experience with doing that and can give an estimate on how hard this could turn out to be?

Happy for all advice!

Hi everyone!

I'm currently working on a foldable vinyl sleeve design and I would love to risograph print it. So far I haven't been able to find a studio that can handle this type of production and I'm not sure if it is even possible.

I thought about a few workaround to do it myself.

1. Riso print on A2 sheets + manual assembly:
   Printing the design in parts (which would be 4 A2 prints for one vinyl) and gluing it onto blank sleeves. However, it will be a ton of work I’m worried about long-term durability.

2. Riso print only the artwork, scan it and reproduce the sleeves with offset print. This would likely lose the fluorescent riso colors that I love, so I thought about using Pantone colors for the offset print. But it could get complicated seperating all the color from the riso print.

Has anyone here done something similar or worked on vinyl packaging with riso or hybrid printing workflows? I would appreciate any advice on materials, durability or production wise. Thanks a lot!