Curious Problem with Epson 3880 and Harmon Gloss Baryta

[pflower]

I have a file from a Sony A7ii of a saturated orange wall.  I have 'Proofed' it on Harmon Gloss Baryta A4 and it looks fine.  So I go to print  on the same paper in A3+ plus.  Curiously there is a perceptible "grid" overlaid over the image - the colours match but there is a texture of a grid over the print.  I have seen this before and it usually means a nozzle clog.  So I run a nozzle check and everything is fine.  I also run a head alignment.  I then print it again - same problem.  So I print it on Ilford Galerie Prestige Gold Fibre Silk A3+ size - no problems - the print I am expecting - no grid.  I print again on the Harmon - still the same problem with the "grid".

So my next thought is that the Harmon profile I am using - made with a Spyder Print unit - had become corrupted.  So I print a different but equally saturated file on Harmon Gloss A3+ using the same profile (and same paper batch).  Perfect print  no grid.

So the problem is not the printer clogging.  It is not that the profile is corrupt - an A4 print on Harmon looks fine and other files print fine with that profile.  The same file prints well on IFGS at A3+.  So what might be going on?

By the way I looked at Jeff and Kevin's video on soft proofing (which I haven' really used) and looking at the file I see that virtually everything is out of gamut.  But then again the file I printed successfully on Harmon Gloss was equally out of gamut. 

Any thoughts?

[Mark D Segal]

How pervasive is the grid? All over the page? Just a bit of the page? Can you scan it to JPG and post a photo of what this looks like? Depending, it could be a head strike due to paper curl, but not sure without seeing more.

[pflower]

It is definitely not a head strike - the pattern is subtle but persistent across the entire image.  I have suddenly remembered that I had a similar problem some months back with an image in which I was trying to darken the blue sky.  I used the HSL tool and reduced the blue luminance significantly.  Although it looked fine on the screen when printed there was a fine white grid pattern across the sky.  At the time I thought the problem might be that whilst I had reduced the luminance of the blues in the sky this had been at the expense of any white tones resulting in a pattern. The solution there was to cancel the HSL tool and instead use a gradient tool to reduce exposure of the sky.

Here the image was rather flat.  No clipping - instead everything was pretty much in the middle of the histogram.  I merely used the Whites and Black Sliders to set the white and black points - not clipping significantly at either end - one continuous area going to pure black but not across the image.  Whites plus about 70 and Blacks minus about 80 and then a very slight tone curve.  I have now re-worked the image being slightly less heavy handed and it prints fine.  So clearly somehow in processing it I have "broken" something.  What is curious is that it only shows on the Harmon paper and not IFGS.  Also curious is that the problem is uniform across the entire image and not restricted to particular problem areas.

The immediate problem is solved (be less heavy handed in processing) but I am still curious as to what has happened and why.  I would post images of clips from both papers but for the life of me can't work out how to do so.  I go to the Attachments and other options menu and then choose two files but then they don't preview and there is no button to "Add Attachments" or the like. 

Anyone got any thoughts?

[pflower]

Ah, I see the image problem - attachments don't preview.  Cleverly I posted the same image twice.  So here again.  The top image is a crop from the Harmon paper and the bottom image is a crop from IGFS.

[Mark D Segal]

You're right - nothing there suggests head strikes - completely different presentation.

Looking at these two photos of the prints, but not knowing the original subject matter (the wall), an external viewer could be tempted to think that the IGFS version is a less distinct print than the Harman version - in other words - those striations across the page are part of the scene and they got brought out more distinctly on the Harman paper than on the Ilford paper, for whatever reason. As you know the wall you photographed, is this possible?

[howardm]

In my experience, the Harman paper is *very* detailed and my processing notes for the paper always indicate significantly less sharpening needed/wanted lest it get too crunchy.

It's much cheaper than buying a Zeiss

[Mark D Segal]

It's much cheaper than buying a Zeiss

Of course the image detail needs to be there before you can print it :-).

[GrahamBy]

In my experience, the Harman paper is *very* detailed

Comparing pixel counts, that grid pattern has a pitch of about 1 to 1.5mm at A3+, anything better than blotting paper should be detailed enough to capture it if
that was the only issue. However I'm amazed that it isn't seen on A4. What happens if you crop an A4 sized piece of the A3+ sized image and print it on the smaller paper?
That could isolate if it is a paper setting issue with the printer, or something in the scaling algorithms along the way.

The other question would be what happens if you print on the Harmon paper using the IGFS profile?

[pflower]

I agree that it is curious that it is not visible on an A4 print - only on the A3+.  It is definitely not something in the scene itself and is clearly something generated by the printer in response to the file that is being sent to it.  But seemingly only when sent to it for printing at A3+.  The problem appears to be caused by quite heavy use of the white and black sliders and contrast controls.  This was processed in LR and I have now gone back and re-worked it without making another virtual copy so the original settings are now lost.  But from memory I reduced the blacks by about 80 and increased the whites by about 70, added a modest amount of contrast (plus 15 or so) and increased saturation by about 10-15.  Looked good on the screen and on an A4 print but then when I went to A3+ the "grid" appeared.  The "grid" looks very similar to the mottling that sometimes results with a nozzle block but that is clearly not the source of the problem.

  I went back and re-worked the image and  I have got a print which is fine on the Harmon by being slightly less aggressive in my settings.  I am most certainly not an expert in colour management and printers, but I have been printing digitally for more than 15 years now and whilst I have had my share of mistakes and problems, I have never come across this before.  Upon reflection it may be that there is a problem with the paper profile (which I generated with Spyder print) when confronted with a file with extreme contrasts.  What I now realise I should have done was to print the same problem file with the canned Harmon profile and also when letting the printer handle the colour management.  That might have either eliminated or pointed the finger at the profile.  Although I have to say that I print a lot on Harmon and prefer my profile to the canned one and have never before had reason to question its quality.

But from a purely academic point of view, I would be interested to hear from those more knowledgeable than I on these matters.

[Mark D Segal]

I suggest trying the same print with the Harman canned profile to test for the performance of your custom profile with that same photo.

[EricV]

How are you sizing the image to the various print dimensions?  Something could be going wrong in the interpolation.  You might try different methods (printer, LR) and see what happens.  I had a problem once where I let the Epson driver resample a huge file down to a small print and got a checkerboard pattern in uniform blue sky.  Solved by downsampling in Photoshop before printing.

[howardm]

if you want, I can send you *my* custom 3880/Harman profile so you have another data point.

PM me if you want it.

[unesco]

For me it may look like interpolation problem. What resolution do you use (360 dpi?)? Any resizing?
I remember ugly artifacts in both size change directions, including edge steps and moire under PS.
I am now heavily testing Harman Gloss Baryta paper (and other barytas) with my 3880 and  can try to replicate your setup if you wish (your file and ICC would be needed).

[pflower]

Interpolation may be a factor.  This is an A7ii file - at A4 size LR says that it could print at c550 ppi and at A3+ it is about 340 ppi.  So following Jeff Schewe's advice I set the ppi at A4 to 720 and for A3+ at 360.  I have recently done about 20 A2 prints from the A7ii - all of these (including the problem image) taken in Rajasthan and so all have very saturated colours and pretty high contrast.  The A2 images on Harmon look fantastic.  I had been idly playing with the idea of changing to an A7Rii but since I don't print bigger than A2 decided it was not worth it.  The more I think about it, I think there is a problem with my profile that only becomes apparent in rather unique circumstances.  As I said I have overwritten the history on the file, but in the next few days I will try and recreate and then test against different profiles to see if I can narrow it down.

For me it may look like interpolation problem. What resolution do you use (360 dpi?)? Any resizing?
I remember ugly artifacts in both size change directions, including edge steps and moire under PS.
I am now heavily testing Harman Gloss Baryta paper (and other barytas) with my 3880 and  can try to replicate your setup if you wish (your file and ICC would be needed).

[LGeb]

If you are on a Mac check your Time Machine history for the older version of the file.

[RHPS]

Clearly a tricky problem, and as a user of Harman Gloss Baryta in my 3880 I am interested in the explanation. But, for my edification, can someone please explain how a defective ICC profile might cause such spatial variations in a print?

[pflower]

Well, I am stumped (British cricketing term).  This is not actually image that I am particularly interested in but decided to see what was happening so I have made another 5 A3+ prints with varying degrees of post processing (some really quite unnecessarily extreme) intended to replicate my original file.  None of these exhibit any element of the "grid".  I have no idea what is going on.  Looking at the 2 problem prints this really doesn't look like something in the file - certainly not visible on screen or in the other prints.  But just possibly my eyes are wrong and some strange confluence of processing tweaks caused this.  I think I am just going to have to mark this down as an unexpected glitch.

Mind you something may be up with my 3880 - not that I would expect it to impact on this problem.  So am asking for advice in another thread.

Thanks for the interest and thanks to Howardm for the profile which works beautifully.

[pflower]

For those who followed this thread, after a lot of paper and even more cursing and head banging I think I have found the cause of the problem and the solution.

I am printing a lot of pictures from Rajasthan made on a Sony A7ii.  Some of these were very flat but not especially underexposed.  All were processed in LR CC but required a fairly aggressive  use of the White and Black sliders (typically +60-70 for the white slider and -80 for the black) to get the required contrast and balance.  Files looked good on the screen but where there were relatively even areas of tones - i.e. skies, walls etc. there would be a mottled grid pattern visible on the A3+ print but not on an A4 print on Harmon Gloss. 

After a lot of experiment it seems that the reason is inherent noise/grain pattern in the files.  Most of the problem files were not shot at high iso - many were shot at 125 or 160 but the aggressive processing seems to have exaggerated this and the Epson interprets this by producing a weird mottled pattern.  Use of noise reduction in LR  solves the problem.  Normally I don't bother with noise reduction where images are shot on the A7ii at less than about 400 iso but there is a lesson here.

So it seems (and I have reprinted 6 problem images without making any changes except for introducing noise reduction with success) that it is not a problem with the paper, the profile or the printer but my processing.

[Mark D Segal]

I'm not convinced, For files shot at such low ISO from a Sony A7ii there should be no such in supposedly smooth tonal areas even with aggressive processing. Did you also try using the Tone Curve instead of the Black and White sliders to get the contrast you want? I ask because it would only start to point to a processing problem if the quality of the output changed a lot from one tool to the next that achieves about the same thing in the same application. Another factor - when you output from Lr to print, are you in a 16-bit workflow? Did you try printing the same photo from Photoshop making sure it is saved out as a TIFF in ProPhoto colour space 16 bit? This would be another check on application performance and the correctness of the print pipeline settings you are using.

[pflower]

I can't pretend that I have any of your expertise in these matters - I simply try and make the best prints that I can without getting too deep into the science of it all and glean what I can from experts such as yourself and others who so kindly post on these forums.

I have always (since v1.0) printed from LR and to date without problems (save for obvious user errors).  I haven't tried exporting to PS to print simply because I can't see the point  If I did so then I would still use the same profile.  Is there a significant difference between how LR prints an adjusted raw file and how PS prints an exported Tiff file with LR adjustments?  I don't know.

All I can say is that having come across this problem for the first time in 16 years of digital printing and x years with the 3800 and now 3880  (don't know how many years but I bought a 3800 when it was first introduced) I was completely confused and annoyed.  I tried all kinds of different settings (1400dpi vs 2800dpi, High Speed vs normal speed, Fine Detail on and Fine Detail Off, changing profiles (howardm kindly sent me his profile), printing with Printer Manages Colour

But here are two shots of a print made on the 3880,  The top one is without Noise Reduction and the bottom one has exactly the same development and printing settings as the top one but has +28 Noise Reduction added.  Really bad jpegs shot under tungsten light but you can see the difference.

If you have a different analysis I would be interested to hear.

Best wishes

Philip

I'm not convinced, For files shot at such low ISO from a Sony A7ii there should be no such in supposedly smooth tonal areas even with aggressive processing. Did you also try using the Tone Curve instead of the Black and White sliders to get the contrast you want? I ask because it would only start to point to a processing problem if the quality of the output changed a lot from one tool to the next that achieves about the same thing in the same application. Another factor - when you output from Lr to print, are you in a 16-bit workflow? Did you try printing the same photo from Photoshop making sure it is saved out as a TIFF in ProPhoto colour space 16 bit? This would be another check on application performance and the correctness of the print pipeline settings you are using.