Help with Vertical banding in dark prints on Epson 9500 even after alignment

[StuartR]

Hello all,

I am having some trouble executing a job on my 9500 and I am running out of tricks to try. I am printing an exhibition for a gallery that consists of text on a solid background in a number of different colors of grey. The darker shades of grey all seem to be plagued by fairly subtle vertical banding (it mostly visible as a gloss differential, rather than a gap of under-inking). I am using Hahnemuhle Photo Rag Baryta and printing at 2400ppi. I have tried printing both with "optimize media edge quality" and with standard. I have not yet tried using the BEO mode. The prints are fairly large at 60x80 and it is not possible to see the error until they are in the proofing lights, even if I shine my phone flashlight to inspect them as they come out. But up in the stronger lights, they are visible. The lines are not visible in the lighter shades...only the ones with a lot of dark tones. I did a bi-directional automatic alignment with the paper, and the issue still seems to be there. My local agent is sympathetic, but does not have a lot of personal experience on the printers as there are only a few in the country and they are still new.

Any ideas? I always feel like I am fighting this printer. I hate the touchscreen ergonomics and annoying loading...there are just so many little annoying things, like not being able to open the roll cover to load a roll of paper while the printer is being turned on, for example. Or now having multiple button presses just to load paper, where the older printers just had a simple button to open or close the clamp. The banding and image quality issues are the frustrating cherry on top. I would love to just get a P9000 again, but the lack of ink switching is very helpful in my studio environment, as well as the speed.

Thank you for any thoughts or help you can give!
Stuart

[deanwork]

If you are printing Bi- directional and seeing banding, slow it down and use unidirectional. That would have been the first thing I would do to get through the job. Also shake the ink carts to make sure all the pigment is suspended well.

John

Hello all,

I am having some trouble executing a job on my 9500 and I am running out of tricks to try. I am printing an exhibition for a gallery that consists of text on a solid background in a number of different colors of grey. The darker shades of grey all seem to be plagued by fairly subtle vertical banding (it mostly visible as a gloss differential, rather than a gap of under-inking). I am using Hahnemuhle Photo Rag Baryta and printing at 2400ppi. I have tried printing both with "optimize media edge quality" and with standard. I have not yet tried using the BEO mode. The prints are fairly large at 60x80 and it is not possible to see the error until they are in the proofing lights, even if I shine my phone flashlight to inspect them as they come out. But up in the stronger lights, they are visible. The lines are not visible in the lighter shades...only the ones with a lot of dark tones. I did a bi-directional automatic alignment with the paper, and the issue still seems to be there. My local agent is sympathetic, but does not have a lot of personal experience on the printers as there are only a few in the country and they are still new.

Any ideas? I always feel like I am fighting this printer. I hate the touchscreen ergonomics and annoying loading...there are just so many little annoying things, like not being able to open the roll cover to load a roll of paper while the printer is being turned on, for example. Or now having multiple button presses just to load paper, where the older printers just had a simple button to open or close the clamp. The banding and image quality issues are the frustrating cherry on top. I would love to just get a P9000 again, but the lack of ink switching is very helpful in my studio environment, as well as the speed.

Thank you for any thoughts or help you can give!
Stuart

[mearussi]

Because you're having such a subtle problem you could be looking at nothing more than paper surface flaws from the manufacturing process (these are more common than the manufacturers care to admit).

The other possibility is uneven vacuum suction not holding the paper uniformly flat.

Try a different paper and see if you have the same problem.