QTR ink separation image prints with marks in the high density areas with fixxons

[aconbere]

Hi all,

I'm having some struggles getting started with ink profiles and QTR. I've been making digital negatives for a while, but this is my first time trying to set up a process in my own home with my own printers (and it’s all making me feel exceptionally dumb! ).

I've made an inkjet print (on an Epson P5370 using the Premium Luster 260 paper profile) of the ink separation image to begin making an ink profile for UV printing. When I print it at 100% ink density I get marking in the densest portions of the image (90-100%).

When I print the separation image at 70% ink limit everything is grand (but the whites aren’t quite white).

I believe what’s happened here is I’ve saturated the fixxons and the marking is the print head running through the puddle. But I’m unsure.

What if anything should I do about this? I think I can continue building a profile with the instructions I have but I’m not super confident.

Any guidance would be appreciated!

 

[koraks]

The bands are posterization. Given that the ink load seems to drop back towards 100, you've got a weird curve setting with which you've printed that chart. I think you need to go into the curve creation tool and double check the settings for that curve. In particular, I can see how you're getting this issue if you mistakenly set this field to something lower than 100:

However, the main thing is to just go through the steps outlined in the QTR user manual and follow them diligently; odds are you're straying from the path there somewhere.

 

[aconbere]

The bands are posterization. Given that the ink load seems to drop back towards 100, you've got a weird curve setting with which you've printed that chart. I think you need to go into the curve creation tool and double check the settings for that curve. In particular, I can see how you're getting this issue if you mistakenly set this field to something lower than 100:
View attachment 410766

However, the main thing is to just go through the steps outlined in the QTR user manual and follow them diligently; odds are you're straying from the path there somewhere.

Hmmm this is printed from calibration mode at 100% ink density. I don’t have an option to select a curve in this mode and QTR bundles the image so I haven’t don’t any preprocessing. I attached a screen shot (so sorry that this was taken from my phone) of the settings that I printed with.