Digital BW, The Print

This is wierd,

I'm making small 4.75x3.25 BO prints tonight on PR, BO with Ebony.   I've only 
made prints this small before on my 820 printer and in color.

Mostly in out of focus areas I see  I'm getting fine lines running vertically in the 
direction the print head moves.  Small fine B&W lines.  Maybe they are made 
up of very fine lines of dots and not solid lines.  Either way to the eye they look 
like lines.

In the image size window I changes the resolution from 360 to 240, this 
worked on small prints with the 820 if I remember right.  Didn't work here.

I printed at 2880 and than went to 1440.  The print got contrastier but the lines 
remained.  I've never noticed this in 5x7 or larger prints.

What is it?  Ideas?  Its like the printer doesn't want to make pritns this small.   I 
could add I saw these on prints with no USM used at all.  

Thanks 

Neil

Hello Neil,

>I'm making small 4.75x3.25 BO prints tonight on PR, BO with 
>Ebony.  Mostly in out of focus areas I see  I'm getting fine 
>lines running vertically in the direction the print head moves.  


There are two kinds of banding, or two categories.  One is generally
referred to as microbanding, and is caused by clogged nozzles, air in
carts or CIS tubes, that sort of thing.  The other is called dither
banding, which seems to be caused by the dither pattern of the
driver, where at certain tonal densities it lays down dots in rows
instead of overlapping patterns.  You'll know it's dither banding if
it only appears in certain zones (most common in the darker zones,
around II or III) and not others.  Microbanding usually occurs across
the entire print.

It sounds like you are describing dither banding.  Does it go away on
larger prints from the identical images, or was that a general
statement about other images?

Regards,
Clayton


Info on black and white digital printing at    
http://www.cjcom.net/digiprnarts.htm

Sounds like microbanding to me..

Have you checked your nozzles?


 
Keith Krebs

"Just some guy," caretaker of the Multiverse's largest EPSON printer 
User Community (highly recommended by Vogon Poets and MegaDodo 
Publications), at:
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"For the rest of you out there, the secret is to bang the rocks together 
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