Digital BW, The Print

I'm sorry I didn't get into this discussion earlier.  I've been
swamped with work (sometimes real life gets in the way).
     I have a 7960 and this problem with the dither pattern that looks
like banding has been discussed at length on the printing board at
dpreview:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/forum.asp?forum=1003

     The problem with the 7960, which I would assume is the same problem
with the 7660, is that the driver over sharpens the image causing the
pattern.  HP is well aware of it and several people have been in contact
with them.  They have responded that they are working on a driver update
that will correct the issue, but it is not available yet.  With my 7960,
the pattern is "usually" only visible with a loupe, so I'm in no big
hurry for the fix.
     I have printed both digital images and scanned 35mm negatives, and
I see the pattern in both, but it is not any more pronounced in the
scanned images with my particular set-up.  Overall, my experience is
quite similar to that of Paul Murphy:  Usually visible with a loupe
only; uniform; looking like a texture; and more visible on some papers
than others.
     You may also want to check out this site:

http://www.photo-i.co.uk/

     There is a review of the 7960 there where they show the over
sharpening dither pattern as well.
     My guess would be that since this is a driver problem with the 7960
(and probably the 7660), it may be more pronounced on some OS/hardware
combinations than others, and it might be more of an issue with certain
digital files - depending on the origin and processing of the scan.  So
we see once again, as with the Epson printers, there is no definitive
way to predict exact results when there are so many software/hardware
combinations out there.

Thanks,
Ed
http://lightandsilver.com