Epson 9900 prints too light. Ink starving, bad quad, or other?

General
1

I’ve searched the forums but can’t find the same issue, or at least anything related seemed to not solve for me. I’ve noticed my prints are printing way too light, there are almost no deep dark shadows, despite them being in the file (and viewing on a properly calibrated monitor). I’m printing on Canson Platine with the Canson Platine Neutral quad on Piezography pro inks. I printed a purge file and the K channel is definitely not what K should look like (and the other channels start to blend together, too). I printed a 256 step chart and I do get some solid black, and nice gradations on the other target swatches. I have a perfect nozzle check, banding is negligible, if any. I’ve checked to make sure I have the correct paper settings on the printer (thickness, platen, etc). Do I have a misunderstanding of the purge file (i.e. is it not supposed to print pure ink from each channel)? With a supported paper, is it still advisable to run through the linearization due to inconsistencies between printers/print heads/other?

Is this ink starvation? Is the procedure to fix ink starvation to replace dampers/other?

Here is the purge file on top of a black box.

IMG_2389
IMG_2389960×1280 158 KB

Here is the 256-step target

IMG_2390
IMG_2390960×1280 114 KB

Here is a photo of the print

IMG_2391
IMG_2391960×1280 228 KB

Here is a JPG of the print file

2009-06-03 Roll 03-09-positive-Edit copy
2009-06-03 Roll 03-09-positive-Edit copy1000×1000 166 KB

2

Hi Kris,

I see three potentials.

If this is something that just happened out of the blue - meaning yesterday it printed perfectly and today is not - did you just update OS X from a much earlier edition of OS X? If so from what to what?

If this is a printer that has been sitting for more than just 2-3 months, or and has very old ink in it - it may just be that your ink has settled in which case you can refresh the cartridges with ink, shake them gently, then reinstall and run one INITIAL FILL or Initial Ink Charge (depending upon your printer model). Do not try and short cut with power cleans or you may burn out your print head!

If ink is fresh and you’ve been printing steadily and have not updated OS X there is a possibility that QuadTone RIP has self-corrupted and you can download and reinstall. It will not affect your saved curves by reinstalling.

Rachel
IJM-TechSupport

3

Hey Rachel,

  • Good question. No OS updates (Mac OS 10.15.7, the Mac mini is only permitted on LAN, does not get to internet).
  • It has been relatively active. Not a many prints a day type situation, but several prints this week and weekend. All with the same no-shadows problem. I have been able to get pure black on some prints with the 4x5 film frame borders, but I have not printed from one of those files recently (months).
    • I just printed one and the black film frame border prints very dark, as expected.
    • This sort of makes me think that the files are somehow set up incorrectly, but that wouldn’t explain the all-midtone purge image.
  • The ink might be old: it is still my original set from a year ago. Is that too old? I’ve taken the inks out and shook them regularly. I can try an init fill, but may need to get more ink. Nothing is less than 50% at the moment, but not sure how much ink it will take.
4

Sorry! I thought that that was an actual independent channel purge target printing all of the inks independent of one another.

If you want to confirm your inks are correct print the following file in Calibration Mode:

Applications / QuadTone RIP / CurveDesign / Images / inkseparation10.tif

You can upload a photo of that and I can help you confirm that the inks have not been contaminated from an mis-fill or are stale.

Year old ink is fine.

R

5

The original purge image was /Applications/Piezography/Images/QTR_Flush_images/QTR-10-ink purge.tif

Here is a photo of the print you asked for. Looks really good.

IMG_2392
IMG_2392960×1280 172 KB

6

Seems image related perhaps, unless some workflow issue. Your inks are healthy!

R

7

So, I took a look in Photoshop. Checked that I was indeed Grayscale, 16-bit, and gamma 2.2 as recommended.

Then, I selected a soft proof profile… The image lightened up quite considerably… I’ll adjust based off this soft proof. I was soft proofing in Lightroom and it wasn’t this dramatic.

thanks for another excellent dose of support

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