Banding: Epson 4000 and IP and Canson Baryta Photographique

[ippolitois]

I finally decided to get some of the Canson Baryta Photographique paper and printed one of my fave landscapes. IP does a wonderful job for B&W and really give legs to my old printer. However, when I was inspecting the photo I noticed that there was banding in the lite areas. I did a nozzle check before printing and everything appeared to be fine. Having never printed on 17x22 thick stock before, I set the platen to wider to ensure that I didn't strike the head on the paper. Now I'm wondering why I'm getting banding and thinking that the platen was set wrong.

Here are the settings in IP:

Fed was Manual
Grey IP Profile for Canson Baryta Photographique
1440 8 Pass
Platen Wider

I double checked the nozzles to make sure it wasn't that and they appear to be fine. I aligned the head several months ago and figured it didn't need it. Before I print anymore of this paper, I wanted to know if I was doing something wrong. When the nozzles are firing ok, I never get banding on this printer. Can I set IP to print 2880 even though the profile was created for 1440? Also, can I use the Ilford Fiber Gold profile at 2880 instead?

Any help in this matter would be greatly appreciated.

Paul

[Sven W]

Platen Gap Wide usually is enough for the Can Baryta. Or set for Velvet in the IP Media Type.
And go for 1440 4 pass.

You can read more on Platen Gap and IP on ColorBytes informative blog.

/Sven

[ippolitois]

Platen Gap Wide usually is enough for the Can Baryta. Or set for Velvet in the IP Media Type.
And go for 1440 4 pass.

You can read more on Platen Gap and IP on ColorBytes informative blog.

/Sven

Hi Sven,

Thanks for the info and link. Canson had some sparse info on setup of the printer. It suggested to use Luster 250 media settings and the paper went through using the sheet feeding tray. All the issues of banding were gone and the head didn't jam on the paper. I'm hoping that this will work with the Ilford GFS paper, but I've had issues with jamming. I'll set the platen gap to wide and see if that helps. I would love to upgrade IP but I'm not sure my next printer will be an Epson and it wouldn't be a good investment. It's unfortunate that the 4900 hasn't really addressed the ink clogging issues that have been around since Epson started making printers. This is the 5th generation Epson printer with 1st generation issues.

Thanks for the help, it's greatly appreciated.

Paul