Digital BW, The Print

In an earlier thread Paul suggested I might have to relinearize my curve. I was preparing to do so (the curve is Eb6-PA-205 and I would save it under a new name) and when I printed out the 21-step file. I noticed that after the 70% patch, starting with the 65, the next 2 or 3 patches were abnormally lighter. Then, at 55%, they got darker again and the progression to white seemed more uniform. I think these problem areas might be what's giving me the solarized look. Those solarized areas in my print look to be the same shade of grey as in my 21-step print. Interestingly, this showed up more when the printer was set at 2880 ppi as opposed to 1440. (just to reiterate, am using a refurbed 1400, Paul's curve, and Premier Art 205 paper.)

However, when I printed the Calibration Print, the grey scale for each cart looked quite uniform.

Nozzle checks were excellent but I did the Epson's cleaning up to the third level just to be sure. But the cleaning routines did not help.

Is there a way to determine which cart or carts is causing that grey scale to have those problem areas? I do have a spare set of carts, maybe I should just replace all of them. Their chips have different version numbers so it might be best not to mix the two versions.

As an aside... do the mixed inks grow stale after a while? Just a thought...

I may need to provide more information, please let me know.

Thanks all!

Paul

Sorry Paul, I pulled the cart but didn't really know what to look for. Should I be looking at the cart itself, or the cyan portion of the Calibration Print or...?

Long as I had it out I topped it off, I made a couple of prints, but still getting solarization. I will say, however, I'm getting noticably better blacks with the refilled cyan.

I do have two more sets of carts, one has version 6.0 chips and one has 6.3. The 6.3 set is new, from MIS, took three tries to get a set that was recognized, you may recall that time I had trouble. My set now in use has 6.0's, they're from Jon Cone and he had them made to his specs so they could be manually resettable, I feature I really like. The spare 6.0's - I suspect they're autoreset, got those from a guy who's a member here.

Should I try a cyan from one of these sets? Would I damage anything by trying a cyan cart from either set?

By the way I sent the same file to two of my colleagues and they got prints fine with no solarization. One was printed at Costco, and one in a 3800 with a Jon Cone b/w set of carts. And my humble little HP Inkjet which I used for everyday letter writing did fine with the same image, no solarization.

Paul

Yup, the slider was at 100.

OK, here we go... they're a lot closer now, your numbers are slightly lower but appear to be consistently lower:

percentage........your print's cyan numbers.... my Cal Mode's #'s

0.................................240........................254
5.................................149........................156
10...............................108........................111
15................................82,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,85
20................................67.........................70
25................................58.........................59
30................................49.........................52
35................................42.........................46
40................................38.........................42
45................................35.........................40

Now I've done this only for cyan... what does that tell us so far? perhaps another cart is the culprit?

I don't expect you to answer tonight ... this has been pretty intense. But I do hope to continue this pursuit. I feel like we';re on the right path.

Paul

ok, this is a rough draft... having a heck of a time adjusting brightness and contrast on this Dell monitor. It's got five small buttons on the right that you can't see, they're not labeled, and they are same color as the monitor chassis, and you have to go through several menus to get to B and C. I'm going to download their pdf, print it out, and see if I can make sense of it.

In the meantime, here's what I have. If not satisfactory, I'll be happy to do better once I get the monitor manual.

on the 40 patch:

my Cal Print.............. your supplied jpg

LC..... 112..................94
M........62...................59
LM......90..................114

not very good numbers I'm afraid. be frank and tell me they're lousy! My LC patch is lighter, which is what you were asking.

stay tuned,

Paul