Espon R2880 versus Epson Pro 3880 - lines are jagged

[littleillustrator]

Hi there,

I own an Epson R2880 and have used it for a long while, but I also just purchased an Epson Pro 3880 and I have noticed an issue with the print quality on the Epson Pro 3880 compared to my R2880.

The 3880 is printing the print with slightly jagged lines and not completely smooth. Does this have anything to do with my computer set-up? I did hear something about a RIP application, has this got anything to do with it? I am just printing directly out of Photoshop.

Both prints were printed A4 @ 300 dpi on the same paper, maybe with a tiny bit of scaling, due to borderless printing. I used velvet fine art paper as the setting with print setting set to 'quality'

Here is a link to show you what is happening up close-up http://tillyandtom.com/epson_3880-jagged_edges.jpg

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thank you.

[hugowolf]

The ‘quality’ settings are probably different with each printer. The 2880 has a max output of 5760 dpi, the 3880 of 2880 dpi. The ‘quality’ setting on the 3880 is 1440 dpi.

You might want to up the resolution of the input image to 360 ppi (pixels per inch) inch instead of 300 ppi. 360 ppi is a native resolution of both printers, 300 ppi is not. Alternatively, you might want to try printing for a better app, such as Lightroom or Qimage, both of which will allow you to set the output ppi to 360 for printing.

The other thing you could try, without going to better software, would be uprezing the image to 720 ppi in Photoshop, setting the 3880 for 2880 dpi, and turning on ‘finest detail’ in the driver. It will print slower, but ‘finest detail’ is there for line drawings and such.

You do not need a RIP.

Brian A

[littleillustrator]

Hi Brain,

thanks for your reply.

Yep unfortunately I created this illustration before I got both printers, so I set the design to 300 dpi, but I had no issues with the R2880, in fact there was no real issues printing the same illustration out at double the size at A3 so bringing it back down to 150 ppi, the resolution was still fine on the R2800.

I have never really been good at understanding how to upresize images. I am guessing it is not as simple as replacing the resizing of 300 ppi to 360 ppi in Phototshop?

I do have lightroom, I don't quite understand how changing the ppi to 360 will change the end print out? Would 60 ppi make such a difference and really cause jagged lines?

[jpegman]

It's not that 360 vs 300 would make the lines less smooth as much as the native resolution for Epson printers is 360 (and Canon is 300), and resizing for optimum quality must be a multiple of the native resolution (360, 720) for all Epson printers.
LR and Qimage have intelligence to the driver adjustments and will choose the correct resolution automatically based on the printer driver. With Photoshop, you are on your own - another reason for LR or QImage over Photoshop printing!

Jpegman

[hugowolf]

Yep unfortunately I created this illustration before I got both printers, so I set the design to 300 dpi, but I had no issues with the R2880, in fact there was no real issues printing the same illustration out at double the size at A3 so bringing it back down to 150 ppi, the resolution was still fine on the R2800.

Upping the output resolution in the driver dialog to 2880 dpi and turning on 'finest detail' may be all that is needed. It is worth a try.

I have never really been good at understanding how to upresize images. I am guessing it is not as simple as replacing the resizing of 300 ppi to 360 ppi in Phototshop?

You can't simply replace the 300 ppi parameter with 3600 ppi, but it isn't difficult.

Image > Image Size > check the Resample image box and then change the resolution to 360 from 300. I'd use Bicubic Smoother as the algorithm to uprez the image.

I do have lightroom, I don't quite understand how changing the ppi to 360 will change the end print out? Would 60 ppi make such a difference and really cause jagged lines?

Lightroom is better at changing the resolution than the printer pipeline, which probably just uses a nearest neighbor algorithm. The printer is asking for a 360 ppi or 720 ppi file, and if it doesn't get one, then somewhere in the system, a 360 ppi file has to be created to screen the image from RGB 300 ppi to 1440 or 2880 dpi CMYK.

I'd still try setting the Epson 3880 to 2880 dpi and finest detail first. If the Epson 2880 can take a 300 ppi image without creating jaggies, the Epson 3880 should be able to too.

Brian A

[littleillustrator]

Ok great I will try some of your suggestions both @Jpegman and @Brian

I really would prefer not to use finest details, as it does take much longer. I pump out a number of prints each day and really like that with the r2880 I didn't have to wait 10 minutes for a print to be completed.

[hugowolf]

Ok great I will try some of your suggestions both @Jpegman and @Brian

I really would prefer not to use finest details, as it does take much longer. I pump out a number of prints each day and really like that with the r2880 I didn't have to wait 10 minutes for a print to be completed.

A4, even with finest detail set, isn't going to take 10 minutes to print.

Even with 720 ppi set, it will revert internally to 360 ppi.

Brian A

[Farmer]

"finest detail" should have no impact on output speed, unless you're using an ancient computer.