adding aquatint or grain screen effect for photoetchings

I'm taking a class in photo-etching using ImagOn photopolymer film. This involves getting photocopies of my images on transparency sheets, then exposing the ImagOn film twice: once using an aquatint screen and then with the image transparency (positive). The aquatint is to create very tiny dots throughout the film that will hold ink when the plate is inked up for printing (we're talking an etching press here, nothing digital).

I'm wondering if there is any way to create this series of tiny dots directly onto an inkjet transparency. Some ways I thought might work:

Add Noise filter effect to my image (one question: does increasing noise add more dots per area?)

Converting to grayscale, then bitmap, and using one of the diffusion or half tone conversions. (when I do this they look pretty ugly on-screen but I'm not sure if this is accurate view)

Using a plug-in such as Exposure to add film grain with greater control.

Use a filter: such as film grain, or ?

Any suggestions are appreciated. Best, David.

Converting to grayscale, then bitmap, and using one of the diffusion or half tone conversions. (when I do this they look pretty ugly on-screen but I'm not sure if this is accurate view)

You absolutely need to view bitmap images at 100% to get an accurate preview of what they look like

Okay, that's useful info. David