I just got an Epson 3880 successfully converted to PiezoPro inks. I started calibrating PiezoDN Pro negatives on Pictorico OHP film, but my negatives are coming out completely black. I’ve been using the PiezoPro Silver quad for this.
I’ve tried reinstalling QTR and the quad curves, made sure all curve and folder permissions are set to read/write, ran the Terminal command sudo chmod -R 777 /Library/Printers/QTR/quadtone, and even tested on another computer, all with no luck. I was wondering if anyone can help me with this.
All black ink output occurs with QTR under two conditions.
If the curve is not of the type expected or missing the correct amount of lines for the QTR printer.
The other reason is usually permissions. While you opened permissions correctly the curves may have been copied to your library with out read & write set for “everyone” of which QTR is one of the “everyone”.
If you discover that you can manually change permissions for the installed curves in your library by getting info from file menu on the directory and changing its permissions and apply to all enclosed items.
Thank you for your response. I double-checked all of the permissions in the Library folder and the Quad folder in the main piezography app folder. I set everything to everyone and R/W, and I followed your instructions to apply to all enclosed items. I did a test print, and it was still all black. Here is the quad curve I was using.
I feel like it has to be a permissions issue, but I don’t know where it would be. I removed the printer from the settings menu and reinstalled it. That didn’t work either.
I reinstalled the driver, but I wasn’t sure about updating to Tahoe yet. I found out what it was, and I feel a little silly for not checking. I think I was trying to print too small for print tool. I was trying to print just a test strip 8.5 x 3 and it came out all black. I then cut a bigger piece of film 8.5 x 5.5 and it worked. I didn’t know it possibly had a minimal size it could print at.
Thank you Jon and Rachel for helping me talk it out!
Can you successfully make Piezography prints? That is critical before attempting something like calibrating a darkroom. Are your standard Piezography prints coming out correctly? Or have you not attempted to make standard prints and proceeding directly to calibration?
Well, I have the problem solved. I think it’s when little things in the system come up that throw a wrench in things, such as the problem above, that derail the whole calibration process. I ended up figuring it out. I think I was printing it in the wrong orientation, 3x8 horizontally instead of 8x3 vertically. I started to have at least 4 inch on the shortest end when printing out anything with the OHP film. It looks like the smallest I have gone for step wedges is 4x6, in print tool, to save film and ink. I successfully calibrated the 3880 for silver and inkjet prints. The silver prints come out excellent now, as well as the Piezography inkjets.