A puzzle about first and last inch microbanding
2015-09-06 by brian_downunda@...
The issue with micro-banding in the first and last inch of a print when printing with QTR on the non-Pro Stylus Photo printers is a well-known and often discussed issue here. This short post by Roy is clear:
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/QuadtoneRIP/conversations/messages/12758
When printing with K7 inks on gloss, there's a need for a second pass through for the GO coat. If feeding via the normal sheet feeder, IJM recommends using a taped-on lead sheet in order to prevent the paper feed roller marking the print, either that or leaving a very wide leading margin of 2"-3". It occurred to me that printing the image with a lead and trailing sheet would enable me to print in the first and last inch of the page without any banding.
This works a treat, except for one problem, and that is, it's not that uncommon for the trailing sheet to become detached and jam, which is bad. Also, taping on two strips is double the inconvenience.
So I tried leaving off the trailing sheet but telling QTR that it's there. So I have a 140mm lead sheet for an A4 page and I tell QTR that there's also a 140mm trailing sheet, which means I can centre the image, but don't actually attach it.
Now this is where it gets interesting. With this workflow, I *don't* get any micro-banding in the last inch. If you don't believe me, then try this yourself. Believe me, I've looked and looked and there isn't any. Nor can I see any artefacts from paper handling issues. (R1900)
So which piece of software am I really fooling here? Is it QTR or the printer firmware? I have one more piece of evidence. If I try the same trick when doing a GO second coat, and I try to get GO laid down right to the edge of the paper, the printer won't print any closer to the edge than the 1/8" margin. So the printer knows that the end of the page is coming. This suggests that I'm fooling QTR rather than the firmware.
Is this semi-educated guess correct? If so, you'd wonder whether it might be possible to program QTR to fool itself at the leading edge? Of course if it really is the firmware that's being fooled then obviously it can't be done. No doubt Roy has tried everything already.
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/QuadtoneRIP/conversations/messages/12758
However I get some surprising results and I don't quite understand why, not that I'm complaining.
When printing with K7 inks on gloss, there's a need for a second pass through for the GO coat. If feeding via the normal sheet feeder, IJM recommends using a taped-on lead sheet in order to prevent the paper feed roller marking the print, either that or leaving a very wide leading margin of 2"-3". It occurred to me that printing the image with a lead and trailing sheet would enable me to print in the first and last inch of the page without any banding.
This works a treat, except for one problem, and that is, it's not that uncommon for the trailing sheet to become detached and jam, which is bad. Also, taping on two strips is double the inconvenience.
So I tried leaving off the trailing sheet but telling QTR that it's there. So I have a 140mm lead sheet for an A4 page and I tell QTR that there's also a 140mm trailing sheet, which means I can centre the image, but don't actually attach it.
Now this is where it gets interesting. With this workflow, I *don't* get any micro-banding in the last inch. If you don't believe me, then try this yourself. Believe me, I've looked and looked and there isn't any. Nor can I see any artefacts from paper handling issues. (R1900)
So which piece of software am I really fooling here? Is it QTR or the printer firmware? I have one more piece of evidence. If I try the same trick when doing a GO second coat, and I try to get GO laid down right to the edge of the paper, the printer won't print any closer to the edge than the 1/8" margin. So the printer knows that the end of the page is coming. This suggests that I'm fooling QTR rather than the firmware.
Is this semi-educated guess correct? If so, you'd wonder whether it might be possible to program QTR to fool itself at the leading edge? Of course if it really is the firmware that's being fooled then obviously it can't be done. No doubt Roy has tried everything already.