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Messiah Khan
03-04-2009, 10:58
Im having a problem with one of our large format printers. I've switched it over to matte ink and am printing on FujiFilm Fine Art Rag paper. I've got a custom paper profile and am printing from Colourbyte Imageprint RIP. The problem is that I seem to be missing a part of the dark tonal range. Ie, if I print a test gradient, it goes from black, to a mid grey in a very harsh line. This is resulting in prints coming out with a very smokey look and glogged shadows. Any ideas of what could be happening? I've tried several profiles, and have cleaned the heads etc. :(
William
05-05-2010, 12:31
Was the profile built on your printer with your matte ink if not this maybe your problem, try the generic Fuji profile and see if that presents the same issues. The reason I'm saying this if it's blocking up in the lower tones how did you profile it?
Messiah Khan
05-05-2010, 16:26
Yeah, I have tried custom profiles, as well as profiles from the Colorbyte database. I have now had the printer serviced which has helped a bit, but it's still not great tbh.
William
05-05-2010, 17:24
What OS are you on as Mac Snow Leopard with a 9600 has these issues, 10.6.3 helps but not perfect without a lot of mucking around with ink flow.
Messiah Khan
05-05-2010, 20:33
What OS are you on as Mac Snow Leopard with a 9600 has these issues, 10.6.3 helps but not perfect without a lot of mucking around with ink flow.

Not sure off the top of my head, but certainly not Snow Leopard. Probably 10.3 something. Why would the OS be affecting the result? Shouldn't the RIP be having total control over the ink flow etc?
William
05-05-2010, 22:51
It's just a though as there are major Epson/SL printing issues though through a rip shouldn't be an issue I've printed fine through Colorburst on 10.6.2 but totally horrid prints if I use the Epson drivers.
William
06-05-2010, 05:34
One other thing, when you switched over to matte inks did you flush the pk ink in the lines until matte ink hit the paper?
Messiah Khan
06-05-2010, 06:31
One other thing, when you switched over to matte inks did you flush the pk ink in the lines until matte ink hit the paper?

Yeah, the Matte printers have been printing Matte inks for years now. I dedicate the 7800 & 9800 for Pearl paper, and the 7600 & 9600 for Fine Art paper. We are moving facilities in the summer, so when set up in the new place I might upgrade to the latest version of Imageprint and make new profiles etc. 99% of the stuff I print is on Pearl paper anyway and that looks perfect.
William
06-05-2010, 06:37
Maybe worth having the 9600 serviced if all the other printers are delivering the quality.
Messiah Khan
06-05-2010, 08:04
Maybe worth having the 9600 serviced if all the other printers are delivering the quality.

It was serviced a few weeks ago along with the others. Thanks for all your replies btw.