Digital BW, The Print

After re-re-reinstalling the Septone software, I couldn't use the printer at all
because the Septone dialog window wouldn't come up after selecting "Export" and
"Septone" in Photoshop. I sent emails to InkjetGoodies and R9, and posted the
problem on the discussion group. Gregory Schern, of InjetGoodies, got back to me
right away with several suggestions. A little later, "bwguys" at R9 responded
with more suggestions, and I received helpful suggestions from fellow Septone
user Tom Welch. I was pleasantly surprised by the quickness and depth of the
responses. Gregory mentioned the dongle several times and even though the visual
(red light on the dongle) and audible response from my system was positive, for
no good reason I pulled it out of its USB port and plugged it into another one.
Initially, everything was status quo... red light and audible confirmation... I
opened Photoshop for the umpteenth time, and voila! I got the Septone window.
All I did was move the dongle from one USB port to another.

Like Jim, I can't get a perfect nozzle check either. Following the PDF
instructions, I printed FLUSH.TIF on plain paper. The image looks like the
results of how a chalkboard would look after someone wiped it oily paper towels.
It's designed to flush out whatever previous inks are in the line. All three
prints looked the same. Then I printed the Septone gray scale image on the
Entrada Fine Art 190 included with the kit, after adjusting the tint sliders to
neutral. First the good part... absolutely neutral and only the slightest hint
of metamerism. The bad part is that a lot of the gray scale didn't even print. I
had run a nozzle check with the Ultrachromes, before changing inks, and
everything was perfect. In fact, I've been running nozzle checks about once a
week, and have never needed a cleaning. My first Septone nozzle check shows
about two thirds of the lines missing! The instructions say "Don't panic, and
don't run more than 4 cleaning cycles if you don't see significant improvement
in the nozzle check. You will just waste ink, and if you run a lot cleaning
cycles in a row you may damage the print head. Be patient, and let the printer
"rest" for a couple of hours - overnight is optimal - which gives any air
bubbles in the ink delivery system time to disperse." After the second cleaning,
about half of the missing lines appeared. After the third cleaning, I was
missing only about 25%. One last cycle... agggh!... missing as much as the first
one again. I turned it off for the night. This morning, after two cleaning
cycles, I was missing four or five lines in one ink, and three lines in another.
Both nozzle check prints looked identical, so I decided to make some prints
anyway.

The Entrada paper definitely appears whiter than my standard Hahnemuhle Photo
Rag 308. If you are familiar with Type C color printing, the Photo Rag is about
3 to 5R, comparatively. That's not a problem for me, but the green ink color on
the Photo Rag is. Maybe the Septone ink reacts weirdly with the Photo Rag
coating, or Septone's Photo Rag profile is the cause. I tried adjusting the tint
sliders in the Septone dialog window, but there's not enough information about
what I'm adjusting... other than warm and neutral. I presume I could run test
strips until I get the color I want with Photo Rag.

Epson Premium Luster showed good tonal range. The color was similar to an Ilford
"olive" Multigrade darkroom print, but at least twice the saturation.
Presumably, that could be controlled with the tint sliders too, but it's not
worth thinking about because bronzing was the worst I've seen on any paper with
any ink... and barely touching it with your finger leaves a white mark.

My Entrada prints shift about 2M in daylight. Not at all an issue for me. The
190 thickness included in the kit may be the cause of some buckling from ink
saturation. I reduced the density to 90 (from default 100), and that fixed the
problem. However, on a later print, I couldn't get the black I wanted, so I
increased density to 110, gamma to 1.2 (from 1.0 default) and slightly warmed
the color from a neutral 100 to 80. MaxD (blacks) was good, midtones open and
paper not over-saturated. I'd like to see how this paper works with
Ultrachromes.

Referring to Jim's ink spitting problem, I too got blobs that got dragged around
the page while printing. Luckily, it didn't make too much of a mess within the
printer. After running a few sheets of plain paper through (without printing),
and soaking up a couple ink drops with a tissue, I concluded one or more print
heads were hitting the paper... not more so than with the Ultrachromes, but
perhaps the Septone seals are not as robust. My reasoning... It happened only on
the Entrada, which was the thinnest of the papers I was testing, and the only
one I loaded in the sheet feeder, and with the height adjustment low. The other
papers took the straight route through the manual feeder and high height
setting. Consequently, I used the manual feeder for all subsequent prints, and
the problem hasn't resurfaced.

_____________________________________________
Help end spam and telemarketing... never respond to it, even to "unsubscribe."

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Jim
To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, September 27, 2003 2:25 PM
Subject: [Digital BW] problem with Septone 2200


I installed the Septone system on my Epson 2200 on thursday night.
...snip...


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]