Need the perfect printer, for labels...

[jrp1]

After taking a closer look at the label website, there is a troubleshooting tip about "over-saturation" for your (?) labels:

Troubleshooting Issues Related to Weatherproof Matte for Inkjet Material

* Ink not drying on the label is referred to as over-saturation. This may be caused by the DPI/quality level in your print quality being too high in an inkjet printer. If this happens, change your print setting options to "normal" or "fast draft." Also, having a DPI of 300 or 600 may help with the problem.

(http://www.onlinelabels.com/Instructions/OL2525WJ)

This might explain why the labels looked worse the greater resolution you printed them at.

Have you tried draft mode and/or lower DPI yet?

It is unclear to me if pigment black (the PG-210 Black Cartridge) versus dye-based black (mixture of all the colors from the tri-color CL-211 Color Cartridge when "matte" paper is chosen) would be preferable. Are their recommendations from the retailer/manufacturer of the labels?

No recommendations on the packaging for the labels. I am going to take a close up picture of the labels and post it in here so you all can see how they are coming out.

I'll post it in a few minutes,

Thank you all for the help!

 

[jrp1]

Here is a picture of my printed label,
it's hard to get a good picture to show justice of what I am talking about, but just look at the text Nicotine, Boston Cream Pie, and PG / VG on the top right, it shows then very faintly.
and the boston cream pie is showing as a fat text when in photoshop it's a thin text.

Here is a picture of what my label looks like in photoshop
nice defined text easy to read.
I had to save this image as an RGB color so that it would show properly over the internet.

 

[fotofreek]

possibly incorrect paper stock for inkjet printing. try it on glossy inkjet photo paper to see if the image prints well.

 

[stratman]

Again... have you tried draft mode and/or lower DPI yet as the troubleshooting point suggested?

It may be that the nexus of Photoshop and your specific printer driver/print head may not be able to give you the results you desire. Some info on CYMK vs RGB color spaces which may help: http://www.zimbio.com/Inkjet+Printe...F6GCskp/Basics+RGB+CMYK+ink+jet+printing+home

 

[jrp1]

I have no tried draft mode or a lower dpi, because I'm not sure what you mean when you say "draft mode"
I just tried printing it with the properties set as glossy inkjet paper with no luck, i first printed it on a plain piece of paper and it looked decent, then I printed it on my label and the text got really fat.

 

[stratman]

I have no tried draft mode or a lower dpi, because I'm not sure what you mean when you say "draft mode"
I just tried printing it with the properties set as glossy inkjet paper with no luck, i first printed it on a plain piece of paper and it looked decent, then I printed it on my label and the text got really fat.

I assume you are printing directly from Photoshop to plain or label paper. Since the label looks fine on plain paper but not on the label paper, it could be an incompatibility between printer, ink and label paper as has been suggested. It could be the label paper is sub-par for some reason and new stock will work OK. Don't know.

According to the link I posted from your label website:

Print Settings

    * Always print a test sheet first to determine proper print settings and water resistance.
    * This material should only be printed with an inkjet printer.
    * Adjust "Paper Type" to "Photo/Glossy" setting if test print is too light.
    * Adjust "Paper Type" to "Plain" setting if test print is too dark or there is too much ink.

Have you tried setting paper type to "plain" and lowered the DPI (resolution) as the troubleshooting tip discussed?

Maybe your printer does not allow for Draft Mode. It would be available in the settings and be listed in your manual.

Are you using Photoshop to render the RGB color space as CYMK before going to the printer or are you letting the printer render the RGB color space it receives from Photoshop as CYMK? Are you working in a CYMK color space with Photoshop or as RGB? Your printer may not be able to handle an RBG color space on its own. Other posters may be able to help with this determination.

Have you tried printing the labels from a word processing application like MS Word instead of from Photoshop?

Do you have access to another inkjet to test printing on the labels for comparison?

 

[jrp1]

I am printing Maestro Label, it's a program that online labels supplies you with if you buy labels from them. It allows you the choose the template for your labels, import the label image you created, then save the file a PDF and print it off that PDF file.

I created the label using CMYK not RGB color.

my printer says it will print 4800 x 1200 dpi? I spoke with someone from online labels for an hour trying to figure it out, told him I was printing at 300 DPI CMYK he said that's what it should be.

I have not tried to print it any other way other then Maestro Label from online labels, saving the label doc as a PDF and printing it from the PDF file.

Thank you for all the help!
Hope I can get this figured out

 

[The Hat]

jrp1
Your printer wont do well on low quality setting so youre stuck with Standard or High quality only,
the mp250 is only a low range dpi c, y, m colour printer.

From your previous post you said you printed from Maestro only as PDF and that maybe related your problem.
There are two types of PDF, one for the web and the other for printing they are completely different and shouldnt get mixed up.

Have a look at your settings and make sure that they are set for high quality output before saving to PDF.
You could also try printing your artwork straight from Photoshop to see if your problem
is related to document conversion and not your printer at all.

As far as getting a new printer is concerned the advice mentioned below would be the best way to go
because then you could be the best judge of your own quality and not the salesman.

stratman I would suggest the best solution is to take your label paper into an electronics store where demo printers
are on display and make prints yourself.
This way you can compare results and select the best printer for your needs.

 

[ThrillaMozilla]

You're printing white on color. White on color or white on black is always a problem unless your resolution is perfect.

There are two types of PDF, one for the web and the other for printing they are completely different and shouldnt get mixed up.

??? What if you want to print a PDF that you got on the Web?

 

[The Hat]

ThrillaMozilla ??? What if you want to print a PDF that you got on the Web?

It will all depend on the particular website and the way they handle their PDFs.
They may not want you to print from them at all and often apply a print restriction on them.
Just check their properties tabs before attempting to print and even then they may still be poor.
This usually only applies to pictures however and not to text..