Different densities printed on step tablet
2014-04-05 by <luciano@...>
I am using a modified version of the Ron Reeder step tablet. I have kept only the steps 0 to 100 in 5% increments and the steps from 0 to 100 in 10% increments. The step tablet has an embedded Gray Gamma 2.2 profile, and when I read the K% in PS CC the values are correct.
I print the tablet on Pictorico on an Epson R2880 with Pk using Print Tool. The settings of Print Tool are:
Main Window
Printer: QuadR2880
No Color Management (maybe this is the error)
When I hit Print, the next set of tabs indicate:
Color Matching - Everything grayed out (but with ColorSync selected)
Printer Features - Media Type: Photo Paper
QuadTone RIP - Mode: QuadTone RIP 8-bit, Curve 1: I select my curve, Resolution: 2880 dpi, Speed: Unidir.
Now the problem: I started noticing that the 50% boxes where reading different values when evaluating the scan of the contact print (I use gum).
At first I thought it was my coating technique, my scanner, and even some little pixie that was having fun! To make a long story short, after printing several step tablets, I rested the negative on the lightbox that was on, and by chance noticed a different color for the boxes that where supposed to be the same. So I scanned the negative and indeed some of the patches (not only the 50% patch) from the 0-100 in 5% increments have different K values than the corresponding patches from the 0-100 in 10% increments. What is strange is the patch number is not always the same. I printed 5 step tablets on the same sheet of Pictorico and the number of patches that read different K values are differ from one step tablet to the other.
What am I doing wrong? It seems unlikely that the printer is acting up so much, so I think is definitely some mistake I am making.
In the zzMisc folder, I uploaded the scan of the step tablet negative (step_tablet Negative.tif).
Hope that someone can shed some light on this.
Thanks,
Luciano
I print the tablet on Pictorico on an Epson R2880 with Pk using Print Tool. The settings of Print Tool are:
Main Window
Printer: QuadR2880
No Color Management (maybe this is the error)
When I hit Print, the next set of tabs indicate:
Color Matching - Everything grayed out (but with ColorSync selected)
Printer Features - Media Type: Photo Paper
QuadTone RIP - Mode: QuadTone RIP 8-bit, Curve 1: I select my curve, Resolution: 2880 dpi, Speed: Unidir.
Now the problem: I started noticing that the 50% boxes where reading different values when evaluating the scan of the contact print (I use gum).
At first I thought it was my coating technique, my scanner, and even some little pixie that was having fun! To make a long story short, after printing several step tablets, I rested the negative on the lightbox that was on, and by chance noticed a different color for the boxes that where supposed to be the same. So I scanned the negative and indeed some of the patches (not only the 50% patch) from the 0-100 in 5% increments have different K values than the corresponding patches from the 0-100 in 10% increments. What is strange is the patch number is not always the same. I printed 5 step tablets on the same sheet of Pictorico and the number of patches that read different K values are differ from one step tablet to the other.
What am I doing wrong? It seems unlikely that the printer is acting up so much, so I think is definitely some mistake I am making.
In the zzMisc folder, I uploaded the scan of the step tablet negative (step_tablet Negative.tif).
Hope that someone can shed some light on this.
Thanks,
Luciano