andrew_borowiec

My Epson 7800 worked perfectly a week ago. Today I did a nozzle check and, instead of the usual pattern of fine grids for each ink, it printed out two bands of dark stripes. I turned it off, back on, tried again with the same result. Then I tried printing an image (out of Lightroom); the result was a sheet dripping with black ink, covered from edge to edge except for the leading edge, with just a faint outline of the image under all the black ink.

 

Does anyone have any idea what is going on?

 

The image below is of the nozzle check; no point posting a photo of a solid black page!

 

<p>Well, I'll be calibrating it tomorrow, so we'll see how it does. Maybe all the great reviews are hype too, but I thought it was worth trying out, as it was $599 vs almost twice as much for NEC or Eizo.<br>

I've had a 22" Eizo for almost ten years that's performed flawlessly...</p>

<p>Thanks, Andrew. I just watched your very helpful video.</p>

<p> I'm assuming that the BenQ chart is comparing the values read from the monitor to some standard, Lab or otherwise. Of course, I undertand why the chart is next to useless without more information. Still, based on your video, it seems that the variations between v and u in the chart are not that large, and that even their max dE of 2.0093 is so small as to not be easily perceived.</p>

<p>I just took delivery of a BenQ SW2700PT monitor. This monitor has received very good reviews but there have also been posts about big discrepancies in quality from one sample to the next. As a result, I decided to buy it from a local vendor, B&H Photo, so that I can easily return or exchange it if it's flawed.</p>

<p>The monitor came with an Online Factory Calibration Report that shows "Delta (the symbol, presumably meaning change) E Measurement Result" and a table with figures for R, G, B, W, C, M, and Y values in two sets, u (with what looks like a superscript 1) and v (with what looks like a superscript 1). Does anyone know what those u and v values represent? Some of the u values are very close to the v values, while for Green and Cyan the v values are much higher than the u values.</p>

<p>I lent my I1 monitor calibrator to a friend, will get it back in a day or two and then will run a full calibration on this monitor, but in the meantime would love to know what the BenQ calibration report is actually telling me.</p>

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<p>Thanks Andrew! I just printed the TC9.18 RGB targets from the ColorSync utility and they appear to be identical to those I printed earlier from ACPU. I haven't taken the trouble to read them but I don't think that's necessary. This suggests that the problem is with the prints from CS3, though I still can't figure out how.</p>

<p>Anyway, from now on I will use ACPU or ColorSync to print printer profile targets.</p>

<p>Andrew, how does one use ColorSync to print targets? While I'm at it, I'd like to try that!</p>

<p>As you can see in the screen shots I posted on the first page of this discussion, color management was turned off both when I printed from Adobe Color Print Utility and Photoshop CS3. That means no profiles were applied to the printing jobs, and all the other settings were the same for both, as was the printer driver. That's why I find this so baffling: the output should have been identical from ACPU and CS3.</p>

<p>I haven't had time to re-load CS4 on my computer to see what happens when I print the targets from that, but will post when I do.</p>

<p>I understand that some newer printer profiling programs have you print the targets from within their own software, but that is not the case with the Gretag Macbeth Eye-One program that I have been using for the past ten+ years.</p>

<p>Yes, ColorSync is greyed out in the printer dialogs for both ACPU and CS3.</p>

<p>I guess I'll just use ACPU from now on but it makes me call into doubt all the profiles I've made in the past, printing the targets from CS3. And yet they all seemed to work...</p>

<p> </p>

<p>So what could I be doing wrong?</p>

<p>And in CS3:</p><div></div>

<p>I'm using a Mac and am reading the targets manually, one row at a time. I just repeated the whole experiment on a different paper and came up with the same results: the targets printed in CS3 are visibly darker than those in ACPU.</p>

<p>I seem to remember that CS4 also has the ability to turn off color management, I'm going to reload it on my computer and try printing the targets from it.</p>

<p>Here are screen shots of my printer settings when printing the targets from ACPU and CS3:</p>

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<p>Andrew, it's reassuring that you carried out the same test and found no difference, which is what I was wondering about. You must be right that I did something wrong, but I can't figure out what that was—will keep looking!</p>

<p>For years I've made custom printer profiles using a Gretag Macbeth I1, reading the two TC9.18 RGB targets that I print from Photoshop CS3 with color management turned off (I have my laptop partitioned with Snow Leopard on one of the partitions so that I can still use the old I1 hardware and software). I continued to use CS3 because I can't turn off color management in CS6.</p>

<p>I recently learned about Adobe Color Printer Utility, which was apparently developed for the purpose of printing targets without color management, compensating for that flaw in CS6.</p>

<p>As an experiment, I printed two sets of TC9.18 RGB targets on the same paper, with identical printer settings and rendering intents. One set was printed from Photoshop CS3 with color management off, the other from the Adobe Color Printer Utility. Even to the naked eye, it was obvious that the two sets of target were not the same, and therefore it was no surprise that the two profiles I generated are quite different. What completely baffles me is why that should be the case.<br>

<br />Can anybody explain why that is?</p>

<p>I have to disagree with the recommendations to buy the 3880. I teach photography at a university and, when setting up a digital lab a few years ago, bought two 3800s. They were a disaster: under heavy use, i.e. continuous use for no longer than an hour, so much moisture would build up in the printers that non-RC paper (such as Enhanced Matte) would buckle and warp, which would result in strike marks. After talking at length with Epson and reading resources on the web it became apparent that there was no solution: it was just an inadequate design. They were also quite flimsy in construction, with thin plastic bits that broke off. And the real killer was the ink cost, which is much, much higher per ml than ink for the 4900. We ended up getting rid of the 3800s and replacing them with 4900s that have been trouble-free for over a year and that more than paid for themselves in savings on the cost of ink.<br>

So for a casual user who only prints occasionally, the 3880 is probably an okay choice if you baby it. For someone who might spend several hours of non-stop printing, go for the 4900.</p>

<p>I will be photographing at night in the winter using both a Fuji GW690III and a Leica M9. Exposures could be as long as fifteen minutes and it's likely as not to be raining so I need some way to protect the cameras, especially to protect the M9 from condensation. I've been looking at the wide variety of rain capes and covers on B&H and Adorama's websites but it seems that they are all designed for SLRs, i.e. while they allow you to access the viewfinder eyepiece in back, the front closes around the lens and would prevent you from seeing out the viewfinder window.</p>

<p>Does anyone have a recommendation for rain protection, even something handmade or improvised, that would work with these rangefinder cameras? I've thought of just holding an umbrella over the camera but would prefer to keep my hands free.</p>

<p>Thanks Andrew. What you recommend is pretty much what I thought: my profile works well and at this point, I see no reason to do anything differently.</p>

<p>But I do wonder why Epson made that change...</p>

<p>I've been using this paper for about a year, printing on an Epson 9800. Based on information on Epson's website and on Pixelgenius' site, which provides profiles for Epson wide-format printers, under Media Type in the Print Setting dialog, I have selected Premium Luster Photo Paper (260). I built my own printer profile using an Eye-One and it has worked perfectly. However, I just opened a new box of paper and noticed that the instructions say to use Premium Glossy Photo Paper as the Media Type setting.</p>

<p>Has something changed about this paper? I don't have earlier versions of the Epson instructions so I can't check to see what they said, but Epson's website still guides you to Pixelgenius and their instructions haven't changed.</p>

<p>Or does this just mean that there is no difference between the two Media Types?</p>

<p>Thanks,</p>

<p>Andrew<br>

<b>Signature URL removed. Not allowed per photo.net Terms of Use.</b></p>

<p>On a Mac, the little arrow indicates that the icon is an alias for the actual file, not the file itself. When you open the alias, it points to the actual file and opens it. If the alias is on a separate volume than the file, it won't find the file.</p>

<p>I did do the comparison, I was just too busy to post about it and wanted to avoid getting into a prolonged online discussion. For what it's worth, here is what I found: Lightroom 3 is almost as good as Raw Developer at rendering detail and preserving sharpness. For very large prints (27"x40" from Leica M9 files) Raw Developer still holds a slight advantage but for any smaller size there is no visible difference.</p>

<p>I ended up buying Lightroom 3 for one particular feature: the ability to correct perspective (Lens Correction) in the RAW file before burning pixels. If you do it in Photoshop instead, you introduce a degree of softness (again, I'm talking about things that are only visible in large prints). In the end I only use Lightroom when I need that particular feature as it still lags behind Raw Developer in one crucial area, the ability to recover highlight detail.</p>

<p>Obviously, Lightroom has much greater functionality and more features than RD, but for me little of that matters. Raw Developer allows me to recover detail in very contrasty situations that are beyond the ability of Lightroom, so it remains the converter that I use 99% of the time. Of course, others will have different preferences and priorities. Download the trial version of Raw Developer and see if it's for you.</p>

<p>http://www.andrewborowiec.com/</p>

<p>Well, I checked with Epson Customer Service and they tersely confirmed: "Flushing out the ink and leaving cleaning fluid is recommend."<br>

If anyone else ever has this problem, the cleaning fluid that I use, as well as special reloadable and recodable ink cartridges, comes from:<br>

http://www.americaninkjetsystems.com/.</p>

<p>The printer was donated to us and since we are a state university, we aren't allowed to sell it. I'll see what Epson says.</p>

<p>A local business is donating an Epson 9800 printer to the university where I teach. We don't have anywhere to set it up so will need to store it for a couple of years. I have refurbished other printers that they have given us and know that if a printer sits unused for even six months, the ink turns into resin and you have to follow an elaborate process using a special fluid to dissolve the ink before the printers can be used. So I'm wondering about long-term storage: should I just replace all the ink in the lines from the cartridges to the print heads (dampers) with the cleaning fluid, then flush it out when we're ready to use the printer?<br>

http://www.andrewborowiec.com/</p>

<p>Patrick Lavoie posted an excellent technique for getting rid of color moiré several years ago which I quote below. I use this all the time, it works flawlessly 90% of the time.</p>

 

<p>color moire is easy to get rid off;<br>

1_double the background<br>

2_apply a strong gaussian blur to it<br>

3_change the blending mode of this layer to color<br>

4_put a mask on it and remove with a brush where you want the effect of the color moire remove.. work everytime on anything any color.</p>

 

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<p>The beta version of Lightroom 3 does a much better job of resizing upward than either Lightroom 2 or Photoshop. You can download it for free and use it until the end of this month</p>

<p>Oh, I was responding to Martin S.'s post which said LR 2.7.</p>

<p>Of course, now I will have to make the comparison between RD and LR3; I downloaded the LR beta a while ago but haven't had time to try it. Will post here when I have done so.</p>