Striations on P900 print

[Jeffrey Saldinger]

I’m hoping for an explanation for the striations on the attached image. Please excuse the dust.

I hope all the following text provides useful context.

The striations are perpendicular to the direction of the paper feed; they are not in the file; and the nozzle check is fine. (What may look like two scratches just left of the vertical center line are in the file.)

The striations occurred on Canson Baryta II and on Epson Ultra Premium Photo Luster.

Even though the Epson Media Installer was using Canson’s emy2 for the Baryta II (which I assume is thought to set the optimum printer settings for that paper), I thought the striations might have something to do with the printer’s setting for the paper thickness. Therefore I made copies of the emy2 in the Media Installer and changed the paper thickness from .31 (the emy’s default) to .34, and then to .37, but the result was the same.

Canson’s emy2 for the Baryta II includes uni-directional printing, with 1 second drying time per pass. The result with a two-second drying time was essentially the same.

The result was the same after I changed the platen gap from 2.1 (the value provided by Canson’s emy2) to 3.5.

For all of the above, the paper was fed via what Epson refers to as the “rear” (i.e, top of the printer) feeder.

The striations were also present on a print made on Baryta II fed through the front feeder.

The print of the same file on Canson Rag Photographique did not show the striations (this is the result I was expecting), but for files that have such relatively large areas of pure black I don’t print on matte paper.

On a 0-255 gradient that I made in order to be printed as a test, the striations continued as far as about one-third of the way to white.

On a file of “pure” red (RGB=255,0,0) that I made in order to be printed as a test, the result was not striations such as I saw in the blacks and grays but a fairly uniform series of very subtly different stripes (lighter and darker tones of red) across the whole print. Illuminated by UV blacklight flashlight, there was a hint of the finer striations (though still red, of course) that I saw in the deeper tones of just black on the original file.

Any thoughts?

Thanks.

[Kyle Jackson]

Hi Jeffrey, just brainstorming some ideas here to help break it down, but I know zip about that printer so dunno if it'll help lol...

Would you say these are marks made on top of the printed ink (or maybe in the paper itself), or instead an absence of ink -- bare/thin patches? From your description I'm guessing it's the latter?

I also gather these are randomly scattered from print to print? That probably rules out anything to do with the processing of the image data itself, and more likely it's how the printer is behaving -- inking and media handling.

You've tested head height so hopefully that rules out head strikes/scrapes (assuming no gunk build-up on the heads/carriage). I'm guessing these are flat sheets too so paper curl shouldn't be a factor like on the roll-fed printers.

I thought about the feed path but you also checked both options. And even if the front technically uses the same feed path as the rear, after it sucks the sheet the whole way thru to the back before printing forward again, I can't imagine what it would be doing to the paper prior to inking to cause that.

You also showed it's on more than one paper type so that seems to rule out the paper itself, or a specific batch.

When you mentioned the matte Canson paper was okay, I thought a-ha, maybe it's PK printhead / ink delivery issue while the MK is okay. But then you said you see something in a red print too?... 

I do sometimes notice subtle linear "bands" on my prints (HP Z3100 / Z3200 printers) but I think I'm just seeing my (cheap) paper's inherent texture, and maybe the effects of the roll feed, lighting, and inking characteristics, and how it looks up close from certain angles. Probably stuff I'm not supposed to be scrutinizing lol...

But if I did see actual bare/thin lines/bands in the inking itself (vs marks on top of the ink), I'd start with the usual printhead diagnostic plots to check nozzle health and ink feed. Depending on what I found I'd go down the road of printhead cleaning, possible alignment, and/or maybe calibrating the paper advance. I dunno what all that looks like in the Epson world tho.

[aaronleitz]

Maybe a "paper feed adjustment" is needed for that paper?

[Jeffrey Saldinger]

Would you say these are marks made on top of the printed ink (or maybe in the paper itself), or instead an absence of ink -- bare/thin patches?

The striations look like they’re in the ink (perhaps describable as “light scratches”) and caused by something as the print is passing through the printer. There is that regular, mechanical quality of repetition (visible on the jpeg, and please excuse the dust).

Similar striations appeared on a print made on Ilford Gold Fibre Gloss subsequent to my original post.

And thank you, Kyle, for your long reply. It’s been a great help in thinking through what else I could do. At this point I think I’ve done what I can without further specifics related to the P900.



Aaron, the P900 has a maintenance choice “Adjusting the Paper Feed.” My printer was fine.

[Wolfman]

You might want to contact Eric Joseph, a printing guru in L.A. https://www.freestylephoto.com/blog?p=banding-and-poor-print-quality

[Kyle Jackson]

How old is the printer? Like is this an out-of-the-box issue? Or something that started happening later after much use? Still have warranty/support on it?

[Jeffrey Saldinger]

You might want to contact Eric Joseph, a printing guru in L.A. https://www.freestylephoto.com/blog?p=banding-and-poor-print-quality

Thank you, Bernard. I will contact Eric Joseph via a link to this thread.

[Jeffrey Saldinger]

How old is the printer? Like is this an out-of-the-box issue? Or something that started happening later after much use? Still have warranty/support on it?

Thank you, Kyle.The printer is over a year old.

It seems possible to me that he issue would have been apparent to me sooner, but I don’t usually print photographs that have areas of blacks and very deep shadows as large as the areas on the photograph in question — it was something (i.e., the print on Canson Baryta II) I did in order to compare it to the same photograph printed on matte paper. Almost everything I print these days is on Canson Rag Photographique.