mark_jacobs1 Posted January 16, 2003 Share Posted January 16, 2003 I know I've seen this mentioned here before, but can't seem to find it now. I'm getting faint lines in certain prints. The lines are veritical when in portrait orientation. In other words, the lines to do not follow the path of the print head. I said certain prints... the lines tend to appear when there are big areas of steady or graduating color. Most often happens with greens and blues. This happens on D60 shots and slide scans so it's not a scanning issue... the lines are NOT there in the original file. If a visual aid would help I'll see if I can get a good scan of the problem and post it. What I've done... lots of head cleaning (the printer's). Ran the alignment tool and it looks good (using the same type of paper that I'm printing with). Changed cartridges. I have a feeling the only thing left is to send it in to get a new print head. I'm about to send this question in to Epson to see what they say too. If it's the print head... how much am I looking at? Anyone with experience in this please chime in. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mark_jacobs1 Posted January 16, 2003 Author Share Posted January 16, 2003 Forgot to add, the problem is most common when printing 10x14 or larger. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymond_mckinley Posted January 16, 2003 Share Posted January 16, 2003 Mark I had to replace the print head on my 1270 2 months ago. The cost was $210, my problem was faint magenta lines in the direction of the printhead. You could try wiping the ink pad on the left clean, this reduced my problem for a while. Raymond Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markci Posted January 16, 2003 Share Posted January 16, 2003 If they aren't in the direction of print head travel, then it seems unlikely to be a mechanical problem with the head. I had what seems to be the very same issue (faint lines perpendicular to the print head movement, sort of a corduroy effect) with my 2000P when I first bought it. After doing everything from multiple cleanings to replacing the printer (with a new one that had the identical problem) what finally fixed it was downloading some new drivers from Epson's site. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
introp Posted January 16, 2003 Share Posted January 16, 2003 <p>Do the lines show up in the same physical locations across multiple prints? If so, check that the infeed (the rubber rollers at the back) and the outfeed (they look like little "pizza wheels" on my 1280) rollers haven't picked up contamination or are digging into the paper. I once had a bit of junk on one of the infeed rollers and it left regular lines on prints where it damaged the ink-receptor surface of the paper. I couldn't see the effect on the paper, but the ink sure could tell.</p><p>Best wishes, and let us know how it goes. :)</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emre Posted January 16, 2003 Share Posted January 16, 2003 Is it <a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=003v1I">Fine ink lines on Epson 1270 prints</a>? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mark_jacobs1 Posted January 16, 2003 Author Share Posted January 16, 2003 I've attached a scan from a section of a 10x14 print (ignore the dust!). It has proven to be very hard to get these to show up in a scan, so you really have to look. After photo.net does whatever it does to compress this image, I don't know it will still be visible. In a print, the lines are faint but visible at a viewing distance of 1ft. <<...what finally fixed it was downloading some new drivers from Epson's site.>> I will give that a try, thanks! <<Do the lines show up in the same physical locations across multiple prints? If so, check that the infeed (the rubber rollers at the back) and the outfeed (they look like little "pizza wheels" on my 1280)rollers haven't picked up contamination or are digging into the paper>> As far as I can see, the rollers and pizza wheels are clean. They are in the same location but for some reason only seen in areas that are of one continuous tone, or a graduated tones. The lines are about 1/16 of an inch (maybe smaller), perfectly spaced and look like a series of very faint dark and light strips. <<Is it Fine ink lines on Epson 1270 prints?>> Similar sounding... but that one the lines are in the direction of the print head. Mine aren't... which is what is making me crazy trying to figure it out! Thanks for the help so far... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mark_jacobs1 Posted January 16, 2003 Author Share Posted January 16, 2003 Looking at the scan after posting, it looks like you can still make out the lines. Notice they don't continue into the black area. It's only on lighter colors. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mark_jacobs1 Posted January 16, 2003 Author Share Posted January 16, 2003 Epson told me to clean the head (I sent them basically the same problem description, a little more expanded)... am I the only one that gets really irritated when you send a detailed message to a tech support group and it's obvious they didn't even read your message!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andy_piper2 Posted January 17, 2003 Share Posted January 17, 2003 I see reddish lines, fairly fat and about as wide as the spaces between - is that right? Not the first "usual suspect" - track lines from the toothed paper-advance wheels. Could be jitter, from the whole print head/basket stick/slipping as it slides along the silver rail, just enough to "vibrate' the location of some of the dots in and out of alignment (which wouldn't necessarily show up on the alignment test since the alignment test is based on square test patches not much wider than your bands). You might try putting a couple of drops of WD-40 on that silver rail -especially if your 1270 is creeping up in age (digitally speaking) - before taking the printhead-replacement route. It's a cheap fix if it works. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mark_jacobs1 Posted January 17, 2003 Author Share Posted January 17, 2003 Andy, Well they're not red on my monitor, but otherwise it sounds like you're seeing what I mean. It's really hard to see them in a scan of the print. They look like alternating light and dark lines, perfectly spaced but only in the blue section of that scan. I'll give your idea a try. No, they deffinitely aren't pizza cutter marks. Epson sent a second email suggesting I change the cartridge... I would think changing the cartridge once is enough. Anymore than that and I may suspect they're trying to recoup their tech support guys income! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
libor_sindlar Posted January 17, 2003 Share Posted January 17, 2003 Are you really sure that the lines are not in the original image? Try to look at the image in Photoshop at 66% size (=not 100% or 50%). You may see them. <p> I had similar problem some time ago. I used HP S20 scanner. The image was OK on screen (only minor problems were visible at 66%) but the print had such stripes. It was probably aliasing of (almost invisible) lines from original image and printer resolution. <p> After some analysis I found that even and odd lines are slightly (usually just 1-2 levels of 256) shifted. I wrote a program for removing this shift and the result is now much better. See <a href="http://sweb.cz/libor.sindlar/programy/S20_stripe_remover.html"> stripe_remover</a> <p> You may have different problem since you use D60 but give it a try. BTW, some digicams also had problems with even/odd lines but I don't think that it was related to D60. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mark_jacobs1 Posted January 17, 2003 Author Share Posted January 17, 2003 Libor, I'm really really really sure. I wouldn't keep a $2200 camera if it had lines running down the shots! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john_rheney Posted January 17, 2003 Share Posted January 17, 2003 Well, I can plainly see the lines in your posted scan of the print. It is not so much as seeing "lines" as it is seeing a pattern. This may be way off base, but have you tried varying your specified source dpi? Say, change from 300 dpi to 360 dpi. Grasping for straws. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andy_piper2 Posted January 17, 2003 Share Posted January 17, 2003 Mark: Spinning off of what John implies (and if the WD40 doesn't help) - it MIGHT be an interference/moire/'beat' pattern - if the pixel spacing of the image just happens to be a near-match to Epson's 1440 dot spacing (or an even multiple/fraction thereof). The test would be to try a print at, say, 93%, or some other odd size, which would 'delink' any relationship between the ppi and the dpi. I wouldn't rate this as a high probability - I'd expect Epson's rasterization algorithms would be designed to anticipate and avoid the effect - but it might be worth a print to check out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
libor_sindlar Posted January 20, 2003 Share Posted January 20, 2003 It is probably some kind of aliasing of image resolution and printer resolution. What was the DPI of your mage? Did you resample to a divisor of printer resolution (240 or 360 or 720 dpi)? You can also try different scaling algorithm (bilinear, bicubic, Lanczos,...) BTW, can you post a crop of the original image used for print? Just small part like 300*300 pixels. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mark_jacobs1 Posted January 20, 2003 Author Share Posted January 20, 2003 >>>>>Did you resample to a divisor of printer resolution (240 or 360 or 720 dpi)? The resolution of the image sent to the printer was 360 ppi >>>>>>You can also try different scaling algorithm (bilinear, bicubic, Lanczos,...) The image only had to be resized very slightly (going from 13.71 inches on the long side to 14 inches). I used bicubic. I'm willing to try anything, but I would be extremely surprised if changing algorithm for this miniscule of resizing would change the problem. >>>>>BTW, can you post a crop of the original image used for print? Just small part like 300*300 pixels Sure I finally got a can of WD40, so I'm going to give that fix a try tomorrow. Thanks for all the responses!<div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john_rheney Posted January 23, 2003 Share Posted January 23, 2003 Just curious Mark... did you resolve your problem? If so, what was it? Thanks, John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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