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Banding on neg

Raúl Aragón

Member
Allowing Ads
Joined
Nov 23, 2024
Messages
19
Location
Switzerland
Format
Med Format Digital
Hi, here a question to those who have printed many meters of digital negs. I'm printing from a 17 inches Pictorico roll with an Epson P5300, and Im getting random banding lines printing head oriented (To me looks very much like a feed issue) I've performed head and feed alignment, without much success, then I'increased drying time to 1 second, platen gap to widest, print quality to highest and slowest, back tension to normal, suction 0. But I'm still getting banding. Any suggestions? before I give up on digital negs
 
I'm printing uni, but in this case bi or uni don't change my results, and the printer is only 6 months old, I'tested printing gradients and solid blacks in the solid blacks its even worse, my last guess would be the paper feed encoder perhaps?
 
Welcome to the wonderful world of inkjet negatives. Banding can happen. Sometimes it doesn't.
What might help is to use a different curve configuration; QTR gives you the best options to control this. Depending on the curves used my printer can make fairly clean negatives or ones that show considerable banding. The problem is that the different channels on the inkjet head never align perfectly. It's not needed in the intended application (regular prints) so printer manufacturers don't bother fixing it.
 

Have you also done a nozzle check? Clogged nozzles can show up as banding.

Have you tried using a cut sheet instead of the roll?

I imagine that the printer must overcome some drag in pulling material off of the roll compared to feeding a sheet. This might cause problems. Beware though... The last two sentences are complete conjuncture on my part.
 

Thanks for the welcome to hell Im not using QTR, and the banding is present even if I'print a solid black or 50% grey... it wasnt happening before it started showing after a software update and then it got worse. By the way do you know anybody that prints negs on a image setter?
 
Yes nozzle check is the first thing I do before printing anything at all, and also printed on a couple of 8x10 cut sheets. now I'll find the shiniest possible paper and see If I' get the banding if that happens the Epson should have to fix it, I guess...
 
Raúl Aragón said:
it wasnt happening before it started showing after a software update and then it got worse.
Click to expand...
Well, that's good news as it suggests there's a way to fix it in software. What got updated in your setup?
Either way, give QTR a try as it's really the most flexible way to optimize digital negative printing with Epson printers. It takes quite a bit of work & testing to optimize a particular printing process, but there's so much more you can do than with just the Epson printer drivers.
Raúl Aragón said:
By the way do you know anybody that prints negs on a image setter?
Click to expand...
Not at home, although I understand that Michael Strickland operates one or more machines himself.
In Europe, Calvin Grier routinely uses imagesetter negatives for his prints; he outsources making these negatives to a nearby prepress shop. Katayoun Dowlatshahi does the same in the UK. I've done it on occasion for testing, using a pre-press shop recommended to me by Kees Brandenburg.
Keep in mind that printing from imagesetter/halftone negatives is a fundamentally different endeavor than continuous tone or inkjet (which behaves as something in-between). Dot gain becomes an issue and it can have a very, very profound effect depending on the printing process, light source and sometimes even the paper/medium used to print on.
 
As far as QTR goes, you can use it with your printer, but you'll have to use the P900 driver that comes with it. It's the same for me when I use the P400. I have to use the R2000 driver. You really should take advantage of it.
 
Thanks for your insight on Image setter printing, I'was really curious about it and wanted to give it a try, I don't use QTR for one assumption, I'had negs printed by a friend using QTR on a different printer but P900, and the droplets of ink look bigger than in my negs, resulting in a "granier" print.
I'know its not the place for this question, but its a quick one, when I'try to upload media to the forum I'get a message that says that I'm not allowed to perform that, thats why you guys haven't seen any of my work.
 
Raúl Aragón said:
I'had negs printed by a friend using QTR on a different printer but P900, and the droplets of ink look bigger than in my negs, resulting in a "granier" print.
Click to expand...
Droplet size is not a parameter that can be directly influenced by either QTR or the Epson drivers AFAIK, since it's a hardware parameter that's tightly controlled by the firmware and only within a fairly narrow bandwidth to begin with. The graininess is likely due to how the greyscales are mapped on the various ink channels; this is exactly why I said that it takes time & effort to do this optimization. You can (almost) work miracles with QTR but it's also easy to make really poor results with it.

Raúl Aragón said:
I'know its not the place for this question, but its a quick one, when I'try to upload media to the forum I'get a message that says that I'm not allowed to perform that
Click to expand...
Could you try again, please? Due to your relatively low number of posts, there were permissions that weren't granted yet. Let me know if the problem persists.
 

apparently it allows the upload now, just need to resize the files. Thanks Koraks!
 
Reporting back about banding issue due to feed. I finally solved it after a few meters of Pictorico... in my Epson 5300 the setting combination that eliminated completely the banding are. platten gap 0.9, suction 0, Highest Detail (unidirectional) high speed disabled, media thickness the thinest possible ( dont remember the value right now) all this profile was edited based on the Epson premium glossy 170 profile. I'm posting this in case someone is struggling with feed banding. And wish you all a happy new year!
 
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