Digital BW, The Print

Clayton Jones wrote:


> As for the printer, some people report worse problems than others.  On
> my 2200 I was able to reduce it by doing an alignment with a setting
> of 1.  I tried every setting and that had the best result, with the
> banding no longer visible without magnification.  I have seen BO
> prints from two different 4000s (the 4000 has a more random dither
> pattern and produces the best BO prints I've seen so far - at least
> one did).  One had no dither banding and the other one had as much or
> more than my 2200.  So printer alignment definitely has a part to
> play.
> 
> A friend who had a 1280 couldn't make BO prints that matched my old
> 870 prints.  When I sold it last year, someone bought it who already
> had one and wanted another.  He reported that mine made better prints
> than his.  There have been many reports here in the forum of printers
> that performed poorly compared to others, so they definitely vary.  
> 
> So I think it is unrealistic to hope for prints without any dither
> banding.  It just seems to go with the territory.  At least for now.

Clayton,

Not a BO user but:

I'm still convinced that much of those BO banding issues can be 
diminshed to zero if the black ink can be squirted from many 
nozzles. The 4000 does a good job with its 180 nozzles and so 
does the 10000 with 180 nozzles and the 8 stroke setting.

With QTR it must be possible to use all the heads of say a C84 
with black and reduce the amount of ink on all heads where 
needed. Like with quads the printer then can't make color prints 
anymore and you need more than the Epson driver.  Might be a 
small price to solve the banding issues. Especially when the 
driver allows linearisation as well.

Ernst