Spots in light areas and gradients

[mikemike]

Hi there,

In a lot of prints we make we see some kind of grain. For example in skin tones or nearly white areas the printer makes some kind of specks. We have this problem for a while now and we encounter this with different printers. We have (and had) these printers:

Virtuoso SG400
Mutoh VJ628
Epson 7890
Epson F6200

All of them with Sawgrass inks.

Only the Epson 7890 doesn't have this problem, all the others show the same problem. We worked with different profilers and they all seem to not now how to get rid of this. Our suppliers can't help us either and they even say our customers are too demanding (we mostly supply to consumers so that is off course nonsense).

I tested this with the SG400 with our own ICC profile and with the powerdriver, the Mutoh and Epson 7890 are also with a custom ICC profile and the Epson F6200 with a custom profile in the Wasatch RIP. One of our profilers says this is due to lack of ink colors. He says that it is because the Epson 7890 has 9 instead of 4 colors. I don't think this is it because the Mutoh also had 8 colors.

Can anybody help me out here? Please see the pictures attached.

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20170511_123400.jpg (88.77 KiB) Viewed 27 times

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20170511_123400.jpg (88.77 KiB) Viewed 27 times

vB_ID:4630

20170511_123400.jpg (88.77 KiB) Viewed 27 times

[webtrekker]

You don't say which software you are printing from. Also, what size images are we looking at? Are they highly zoomed? Those dots look like normal dithering to me.

[mikemike]

sorry, both Photoshop CS5 and Wasatch SoftRIP have this problem. It occurs on phone cases so around 7 x 14cm. Not extremely zoomed, the dots look annoying for regular consumers with bad photography, so even with a low standard it is too much.

[cyprian.costelloe]

What resolution are you printing at?

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk

[Justin]

Have you spoken to Sawgrass for their opinion on this yet?

[mikemike]

We print at 300dpi

Spoke to Sawgrass about 1,5 year ago about this, in the end the conclusion was they could not fix this and the printer was refunded. I got back on this topic because there must be a solution to this, as 3 different printers have the same problem and other parties use the printer without problems.. or am I really to demanding?

[JMugs]

What happens if you print to a non sub printer? Eg print to the office printer with a gloss photography paper.

Janners

[mikemike]

Just did a test print on our regular office printer. Perfect quality. Printed from Photoshop like we do with most of the sublimation printers and printed with both the regular profiles as the sublimation profiles.

No dithering visible to the bare eye.

Actually our office printers are all laser printers, does that make any difference?

[webtrekker]

Yeah, always prints perfectly on a regular inkjet and if you use a good magnifier you will see the dithering is very smooth, unlike the Ricoh with sub inks.

Anyone ever tested this in a Ricoh with regular dye inks?

[Andrew]

Does look like a profiling issue with inks and printer combo. Sublimation ink gamut ranges are not always that great and that goes for Sawgrass. Other ink options might give a better range so gradients are smoother. In the past we had large format struggling with Artainium and then we could run the old equivalent of the Epson 1800 and that would give a far superior print with same ink. That is the joy of sublimation, it doesn't always work to the expected levels even with what is supposed to be the best kit. Adapting to make it work for you is where you often end up going.