Z6100 light colors transition to paper white

[MonsterBaby]

good morning. i work for years now with my Z3100 and Z3200 and always loved the results.. i tried (all) kinds of profiling and printing software.. from RIPs to Qimage. the overall best results i got using the hpTC9.18 reference and APS.. as in transitions, shadow details and gamut.

now i bought a used Z6100 60" to get some more width for some work. i realized the gamut will be smaller, of course. BUT i get problems with transitions within the light colors that are inacceptable!.. shots against the sun f.e. child at the beach, flashed.. sun in the right corner.. where as a light cyan has to go into 255,254,254... i get banding with some magenta, some yellow and light cyan. and not only banding like an 8bit jpg will have.. but with clusters of cyan grabbing into brighter yellow. f.e.

do you know what i mean or does anybody have an idea about that?

it might be the built in lin is not working properly in those 0-15% ?.. the target for profiling doesnt really contain those light patches.. so maybe i have to use a different target?. i can check the whole process with a RIP.. but usually im dissapointed by the poor screening the RIPs have compared to the contone driver.. which then of course will have the same lin problems .. right?

[Ernst Dinkla]

With an ink set that has CcMmYKk aboard and similar droplet sizes to the Z3100 there should be no reason why it can not make those transitions. Are the light patches of the calibration target abnormal? If not, what is the state of the heads, head alignment, etc? Does it deliver a better print when the highest print resolutions are used in the driver? If all that is correct, have you tried to print an APS target on the Z6100 and measured it on the Z3200? It could be the spectrometer on the Z6100 being abnormal.


--
Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

Dinkla Grafische Techniek
Quad,piëzografie,giclée
www.pigment-print.com

[MonsterBaby]

good morning ernst,

the thing is.. i dont really see those really light patches in that target. and i asume that this can cause the problem! because its not perfectly linear and puts down too much ink too early.
it doesnt look like its a problem with heads or allignment.. but within the amount of ink and the light transition.
its within all print resolutions.. was my first thought, too.

typing all this.. i will build a profile using atkinsons chart which has all those light patches. lets see what that does.

the screening of the hp driver is so much better than any RIP i had tetsed so far

[Ernst Dinkla]

The calibration target we are talking about, 8 stepwedges that are squirted from 8 ink channels without any interference of ICC profiles. Just the media preset and the printer hardware/firmware. You should get that fixed first if it does show an overload of ink. It could be a firmware or media preset issue, it could be too much pressure on the ink feeding system, the last differs from the Z3200 system.


--
Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

Dinkla Grafische Techniek
Quad,piëzografie,giclée
www.pigment-print.com
 

[MonsterBaby]

what im saying is.. that the hp patches from the APS im using for profiling . dont show very light patches.

so im assuming the printer refers to its calibration (8 steps) which are not precise enough.

so i should use another ICC reference with more light patches- or use a RIP that does a better linearization like the built in one.. which is working with the Z3 series.. but seems to be to unprecise with the 6 series

[Ernst Dinkla]

Fix the printer's internal calibration first is my advice, whatever causes it to malfunction. The RIP that I have used for the Z3100-3200 used the internal calibration of them too so if there is something wrong there a RIP is not helping either. You still did not answer whether the printed calibration target looks alright, including the lightest steps of the 16 patches per channel. If it looks alright (compare to the eye with a Z3200 calibration target print) then something is wrong with the spectrometer. I would expect an error message with calibration target scanning though if the result is wildly out of order. So when the calibration target print looks alright, the calibration scanning is done without an error there could be an issue that the calibration data is not archived or available when the profiling target is printed.

Forget profiling etc if there is a calibration issue.

--
Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

Dinkla Grafische Techniek
Quad,piëzografie,giclée
www.pigment-print.com

[aaronchan]

I agree with Ernst.

First check everything, your printer, you ink, your print head, nozzle check.
Then make sure you calibrated your printer with the specific media.
After that, you can use some other target such as 1728 to create the profile with the APS and built-in i1 system.
If not, maybe you can use some other ICC generator such as i1Profiler or ProfileMaker to create the ICC profile.
I owned a Z6100 before but I've sold it by the end since it cannot handle any thick paper such as Museum Etching or Fine Art Baryta.

Aaron

[MonsterBaby]

ok guys.. thanx for your support.

the calibration patches loog right.
and again.. we are not talking about anything that is between those patches!.. its the transition between paper white and the first visible lc patch where the ugly clusters appear!

like i said.. nozzles checked.. thats not the point! the spectro is working.. the profiles come out well.. and i use a DTP70 for the big stuff anyways!

i have tried colorgate using the CT driver now.. a little better (cuz they use a lin starting 0-30% with small steps).. but still not well..

then i built a profile using ONYX.. perfect!

where with the Z3200 i couldnt find an advantage with onyx profiles.. here we go.. thats the way to run this printer

again.. thnx..

[aaronchan]

This is a bit weird. I remember I used to just built a profile and the printer works fine.
Can you please, if you can, scan a sample of the problem that you mentioned above.
I am very curious about it.

thanks
aaron

[MonsterBaby]

ok. i will do this next week when i find some time.. sure