R3000 Printing grainy and slight 'dotty' artwork

[Scott Dhaliwal]

Hi,

I've recently bought an Epson R3000 for printing greetings cards and fine art. We ended up buying some card from on-linepaper.co.uk from the Imajet card line and we've had very little issue with the card or the quality of image it produces once printed on. The only problem is the price is too much for a small card company.

I have been searching around the paper distributes/manufactures and came across GF Smith which a lot of other card designs/printers use so we thought we couldn't go wrong.

We ordered a few samples and started test printing, but we find that when printed on there is little specs being pictured up when printing and and is sort of grainy/dotty if you will (picture 3 is the better one to look at) It's hard to tell with the pictures below but i've added them just in case.

Is there any settings i'm missing when printing with the GF Smith paper? I've been trying with every different combination of everything i can think off and just not getting any acceptable results

I accept that it could be the card itself could be the issue...but i wouldn't expect the same results with 7/8 different card stocks sure not?

If i switch back the Imajet card then the print is perfect again, so i wouldn't think it's the printer that needs cleaning or anything.

Any help would be appreciated!

Regards,
Scott

 

[Scott Dhaliwal]

EDIT: It wouldn't let me edit the post above so i apologise for the double post. But Picture 1 and 2, although a bit tatty now as a test sample, is the quality we are receiving with the Imajet card stock.

 

[The Hat]

Hi Scott

I’ll guess the problem you’re having is the two different paper surfaces, one is made for the digital market and the old one is mainly used for print shops and laser printers.

You need to source digital copier stock if you want to get good quality prints on your inkjet printer, the stuff you have gotten is probably just a pulp board which causes the ink to soak right into the surface which makes the image look flat.

Go to a high street print shop or paper supplier (Craft Shop) and see if they’ll sell you some decent heavy digital paper..

 

[mikling]

What you are getting is ink pooling for the dense colors.....these colors are made up of lots of dots of the lighter colors or the droplet size chosen by the firmware/print engine is large. There are two ways around this. First , you need to understand what ink pooling is. It is when the ink droplets do not dry fast or absorbed fast enough before the adjacent droplets are laid down. As a result, the droplets end up joining together and you get ink pooling. Changing the media is one way to solve it. Another way to solve it is to slow the printer down. The R3000 has the facility to do this in the Paper Configuration window in the driver. You will need to experiment to determine what speed is the fastest before ink pooling disappears by adjusting the drying time between head passes. This is not necessarily defective ink but just a matching issue....and be thankful that Epson has provided this feature in the driver....for exactly these situations. So don't get too riled up about it, it is something you expect to run into especially when using pigment ink on matte and fine art papers especially. The fact that Epson puts the option in there with their own ink useage tells you that it is needed at times.

As an aside, now for folks contemplating using things like the L800 and 1430 1500W etc with pigment ink, you will realize this paper configuration is absent from the driver and it is necessary for Epson pigment ink printers if you expect to use it with a wide range of papers. One reason amongst many I am sitting on the other side of using these non pigment printers as a pigment ink printer.

 

[Scott Dhaliwal]

You need to source digital copier stock if you want to get good quality prints on your inkjet printer, the stuff you have gotten is probably just a pulp board which causes the ink to soak right into the surface which makes the image look flat.

We actually really like the Epson Heavyweight Matte card, it produces excellent results, but it isn't think enough (only around 167gms) for greetings cards unfortunately. Do you have any papers/cards in mind that would work well? The only place locally around us is probably a Staples, which as you probably know employs nuggets with no experience

What you are getting is ink pooling for the dense colors.....these colors are made up of lots of dots of the lighter colors or the droplet size chosen by the firmware/print engine is large. There are two ways around this. First , you need to understand what ink pooling is. It is when the ink droplets do not dry fast or absorbed fast enough before the adjacent droplets are laid down. As a result, the droplets end up joining together and you get ink pooling. Changing the media is one way to solve it. Another way to solve it is to slow the printer down. The R3000 has the facility to do this in the Paper Configuration window in the driver. You will need to experiment to determine what speed is the fastest before ink pooling disappears by adjusting the drying time between head passes. This is not necessarily defective ink but just a matching issue....and be thankful that Epson has provided this feature in the driver....for exactly these situations. So don't get too riled up about it, it is something you expect to run into especially when using pigment ink on matte and fine art papers especially. The fact that Epson puts the option in there with their own ink useage tells you that it is needed at times.

I'll give this ago and look for the slower setting, but as you and The Hat say it's probably just the card stock isn't suitable for inkjet printing...even though the sample book says it's suitable for 'Desktop Inkjet'

Maybe they have sent me the generic card stock which isn't suitable for Digital printing, i'll give them a call now and find out.

Thanks for the help

 

[mikling]

We actually really like the Epson Heavyweight Matte card, it produces excellent results, but it isn't think enough (only around 167gms) for greetings cards unfortunately. Do you have any papers/cards in mind that would work well? The only place locally around us is probably a Staples, which as you probably know employs nuggets with no experience



I'll give this ago and look for the slower setting, but as you and The Hat say it's probably just the card stock isn't suitable for inkjet printing...even though the sample book says it's suitable for 'Desktop Inkjet'

Maybe they have sent me the generic card stock which isn't suitable for Digital printing, i'll give them a call now and find out.

Thanks for the help

That dry time setting is something you will need to learn to use when printing especially on matte and some fine art papers. Even on top tier stock digital printing stock, you could run into these issues. Canon pigment ink printers seldom run into this but on the Epson Pigment Photo machines you WILL run into this at times especially when printing solid shades. The effect on graduated tones is not that obvious and rarely noticed but on solid tones that use certain shades on mid density colors and darker, the printer might choose to use a larger droplet or multiple large droplets of the photo colors to create the shade. If you choose a lighter color to print in your image, that might shift the ink load significantly or even possible changing the color to a much darker shade to shift the use to the full strength color inks and use less ink.

The most important thing is that you learn how to use the printer ( tool) that you purchased, the settings and adjustments are there for a reason.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

the problem is that a claim 'suitable for inkjet printing' does not mean very much, the paper may just fit into the printer, or the paper only may work with dye inks and not with pigment inks as used in the R3000. You need to test those offers and even go back and reclaim the purchase price for such paper with a wrong product description. Suppliers should understand when there is a problem with their products.

 

[The Hat]

We actually really like the Epson Heavyweight Matte card, it produces excellent results, but it isn't think enough (only around 167gms) for greetings cards unfortunately

Hi Scott, Unfortunately that’s how it goes, you’d need a minimum of 250 gm/300 gm digital stock if you can get it, that weight is only equal to 2 to 3 sheet Pulp board which is not that thick at all.

The evidence is in the name Epson Heavyweight Matte card, that is aimed at the home user and not meant for the more serious users, to call 167 gm heavy is joking quite a bit, I use a 120 gm paper from (International paper) that works very well with two sided prints, but its still only classed as paper and not board.

Try some of the many ink cartridge sellers on the web in the UK they usually also stock paper for inkjet printers, in the US when you find a card stock that you like online you can usually get a few samples sent to you to try out before you buy bigger amounts..

 

[Scott Dhaliwal]

the problem is that a claim 'suitable for inkjet printing' does not mean very much, the paper may just fit into the printer, or the paper only may work with dye inks and not with pigment inks as used in the R3000. You need to test those offers and even go back and reclaim the purchase price for such paper with a wrong product description. Suppliers should understand when there is a problem with their products.

Yeah i'm starting to realise this now. Most of the card we have tried has just soaked up the ink and it's been dull and awful. Luckily all of our samples have been free so we haven't wasted any money on any of this

It seems what we are after is Photo Inkjet Card and just Inkjet Card. I suppose figuring out this kind of information comes over time with learning the machines and trial and error

Hi Scott, Unfortunately that’s how it goes, you’d need a minimum of 250 gm/300 gm digital stock if you can get it, that weight is only equal to 2 to 3 sheet Pulp board which is not that thick at all.

The evidence is in the name Epson Heavyweight Matte card, that is aimed at the home user and not meant for the more serious users, to call 167 gm heavy is joking quite a bit, I use a 120 gm paper from (International paper) that works very well with two sided prints, but its still only classed as paper and not board.

Try some of the many ink cartridge sellers on the web in the UK they usually also stock paper for inkjet printers, in the US when you find a card stock that you like online you can usually get a few samples sent to you to try out before you buy bigger amounts..

The Imajet Card we use is 310 gsm and is perfect for what we want (Greetings Cards specifically) and A4 Prints, although we could use a different card for prints as they are framed anyway and wouldn't folder over/curl over time.

Yeah every time i speak to paper retailers/manufactures they all laugh at the name of the Epson paper It's a shame they don't produce is thinker and double sided as it's really nice paper.

Our ink is from (or will be when we run out) Octojetink. It's was who you suggested i speak to last time about printers and ink (very nice people there) and was on the phone for about an hour with them asking all sort of questions and he pointed me in the direction of 'on-linepaper' company which is where i got the Imajet card from.

We did get some nice Pinnacle FiberMatte card which is 300gsm but just doesn't feel quiet strong enough for greetings cards, but we might be able to get away from it. We can get it slightly cheaper than the Imajet card which i suppose is going in the right direction!

I might just have to bite the bullet and purchase some more from them and try get a better deal, although unless i'm buying a very large amount i doubt they will reduce it much.