Digital BW, The Print

Hi, Mark.  What print quality setting are you using?  I just cranked
out a B&W print on HP PPPG with the quality setting at Best and it has
what looks like microbanding going vertically across the print (the
print is landscape oriented).  Examining it with a loupe it is
actually a weave pattern.  Without a loupe it has the look that you
describe below.  However, with the quality set to "Maximum dpi" the
pattern goes away, but there is now an even finer microbanding going
horizontal to the print.  However, this artifact is only noticable to
me if I practically stick my nose in the print.

Rad

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Mark Hahn"
<markhahn2000@y...> wrote:
> Ok, ...I guess they say that when something sounds too good to be 
> true...
> 
> Have made a bunch of b&w prints with my new hp 7660.  All the smooth 
> tone digital images print out near perfectly, but from film scans 
> the "woven" dither pattern somehow blends with the random scatter of 
> the grain and produces a hidious pattern of perceptible soft 
> gridlines which almost look like microbanding.  Looking at the prints 
> under a loupe shows that it is some interaction between the grain 
> pattern and the dither pattern however.  The problem manifests itself 
> most in something like a face in a portrait or other smoothly shaded 
> objects and vanishes in more texture rich images or grain free 
> images.  By comparison, the posterization issues with my 1160 seem 
> rather mild now.  I've tried upsampling to printer resolution prior 
> to printings which changes the output, but doesn't correct it.  
> Anyone else seeing this?  Anyone have a solution?  Unless I figure 
> out a work around I will be returning the printer as the output from 
> T400CN scans are not suitible for hanging in a gallery.
> 
> thanks for any advice,
> 
> mark