Dotty prints

[Ljb596]

Maybe the POD mug has a poorer coating.

One of them isn't branded on the bottom so could be anything but one is Orca and I've not had issues with them before..

[Ljb596]

I would blame budget paper and maybe the ink. It's bad quality printing, who is the POD company?

Do you think the paper would affect certain colours more than others? Because the black is fine.
It's teelaunch - their UK fulfilment centre. I've also had one from their US centre which isn't as bad but worse than what I can produce myself.

I guess that makes sense though. The mugs are cheap. It's also happened on another company I've used where the mugs are very cheap.

I was hoping it was something I could fix on my file

Thank you

[InkExpress]

The POD company are obviously using a poor quality ink, paper or mug, or possibly all three. That image of the heart you posted is terrible and they should not be sending that out on your behalf. I would look at using another POD company to see if things improve, or produce yourself and you control the quality.

Alex

[Ljb596]

The POD company are obviously using a poor quality ink, paper or mug, or possibly all three. That image of the heart you posted is terrible and they should not be sending that out on your behalf. I would look at using another POD company to see if things improve, or produce yourself and you control the quality.

Alex

I spoke with a company that did a dotty print for me and they had some interesting insights!!
They seem to think it's the speed that they print and they think the dots are artifacts from darker things they have printed previously - seems like seconds before.
They said they could slow the printing a bit which should improve it but I can't trust that they would do that.

Interesting though!
I've had experiences before where I print off 2 identical templates 2 or 3 mugs apart and the colours are very different. It must be that what you print before something influences the colours you get. At a glance you wouldn't notice but if you were sending 2 mugs to the same person but you didn't print them straight after each other they would look different.

Yeah I currently make them myself but I want to outsource. But to a company that makes them as close to what I make as possible! Which is proving hard!

Thanks everyone for all your help!

[malkram]

I had the same problem with Sawgrass SG 400 which is basically the same printer. Sawgrass sent me 2 replacements and still the same problem. The problem is called "dithering" and they recognized it's a flaw in the firmware. I seem to have understood there are just faulty batches. I got a refund and switched to Epson 1500W. Since then never looked back and sticked with fine art/photo Epsons.

[Ljb596]

I had the same problem with Sawgrass SG 400 which is basically the same printer. Sawgrass sent me 2 replacements and still the same problem. The problem is called "dithering" and they recognized it's a flaw in the firmware. I seem to have understood there are just faulty batches. I got a refund and switched to Epson 1500W. Since then never looked back and sticked with fine art/photo Epsons.

Ooh, that's interesting! I've just had a little google. So basically it's dithering when it shouldn't be because it's just a flat colour. Can you tell it not to dither in photoshop? I'm sure I've seen dithering settings in Photoshop before.. But can't see anything right now when I just looked.

Thanks for your help!

[webtrekker]

The dithering settings are in the printer driver --> Print Quality tab. My Ricoh SG3110DN is set to 'Use error diffusion: auto(image).'

[Ljb596]

The dithering settings are in the printer driver --> Print Quality tab. My Ricoh SG3110DN is set to 'Use error diffusion: auto(image).'

Thank you!

[malkram]

I dont think photoshop settings will change anything if the printer is defective. I remember that I had dots even when printing a colour palette directly through the printer menu (with the buttons)

[Ljb596]

I dont think photoshop settings will change anything if the printer is defective. I remember that I had dots even when printing a colour palette directly through the printer menu (with the buttons)

Yeah that makes sense. Thanks for your help!