Re: Inkjet (2200) digital neg banding

About a year ago, I asked this same question about my 1280 which
began to exhibit the same problem after about a year of steady use.
The list consensus seemed to be that I should retire it from use for
making negatives because wear on the print head mechanical parts had
resulted in enough slop that I would never get it working in a
satisfactory way.

Since then, I have been using the 2200 with no problems, but I have
to assume that after a while it will suffer the same fate. I'm
beginning to think that when we factor in the cost of an inkjet
negative, we need to amortize the printer cost over 500 negatives or
so. What with ink, pictorico and printer wear, the negatives have
only one thing going for them, in my book: convenience and turnaround
time. Given my druthers, I would rather work with an imagesetter
negative any day.

On Dec 3, 2005, at 2:47 PM, Clyde Rogers wrote:

> Hi all.
>
> I've been trying to get clean, artifact-free digital negatives from
> an Epson 2200 (and earlier a 1270) for over a year now. I've got
> results I'm happy with in general, but I have one nagging problem I
> can't get past---fine horizontal banding visible in midtones (only
> slightly dark on the neg, but more visibly light on the print).
> One thin band for each advance of the OHP through the printer.
>
> Note that for many images, it isn't an issue at all. But for
> images with open skies or smooth skintones, there are regions where
> the banding pattern is a noticeable distraction. The results are
> just as detailed as imagesetter negs, and approach in-camera negs.
> But they just aren't as smooth as either imagesetter or in-camera
> negs (and it isn't the grainier look that's a problem, its the fine
> line pattern that appears in some regions).
>
> I'm printing pt/pd on cranes cover paper (platinotype), using a low
> contrast mixture (8 drops of ferric oxalate #1, 1 drop of #2),
> coated with a brush, air and blow dried, exposed in a vacuum easel
> using an integrated lightsource.
>
> I've done multiple head alignments, examining results by eye and
> with a low-power microscope. I've adjusted paper thickness, used
> different print settings (2880, 1440, superfine and not) and paper
> settings, cleaned rollers, modified curves to use different colors,
> and used different drivers (Epson, ImagePrint, QTR). I've used
> stock and custom adjustment curves with the Epson driver and QTR.
> I can get great calibration results, but can't defeat this midtone
> banding.
>
> So, those of you getting great results from inkjet negs---do you
> see this in any of your prints? If not, what are you doing
> different? Do you have a better printer (7600, 4000, etc) where
> you can finely adjust the paper feed? Or do you print on different
> materials that are more forgiving? Or do you think I have a
> slightly bad printer? Or have I made some other obvious mistake?
> Do you think I'm just too damn picky to use an inkjet printer for
> negs?
>
> Thanks for reading so much junk,
>
> Clyde Rogers
>
>
>
Received on Sat Dec 3 15:23:41 2005