Dark & flat prints

[Joel_Conison]

I’ll try to make a long story short. About 7 weeks ago I made a print I have printed many times before & the print was too light where it should have dark. lacking contrast. The subject was a black bird (that was selected & dropped onto a background). The background was black with a small highlight behind the birds head. I create all the backgrounds, choose a gray & dodge/burn. The bird (which is black with highlights on its’ feathers) was too light & lacked contrast. My complete set of images has this same problem. Here is the workflow I have used for years & it worked great. raw file> photoshop>select bird>move to a newly created window>do photoshop work with a B/W adjustment layer on top because the file is in a profoto workspace>make a dupe layer flatten>edit>>convert to profile>gamma 2.2>print with qtr. It used to work beautifully, matching my proof set up of "qrt_rgb_matt_paper. It looked very similar to the screen.
Roy Harrington suggested that I update to qrt 7.2 which I did but the same problem persists. The printer is working fine (had repair done so all tests indicate that it’s fine). My qrt setup is the same as it’s been for years. If anyone has a suggestion as to what will correct this, I would appreciate it. I now think it’s the profile because the tones of the print are so out of whack now. Just a guess.

[DanaC]

Hi Joel~

Is this with your 7800/9800 printer? After reviewing your order history, I see you last purchased Piezography Neutral ink in June 2009, so these inks are about five years old, therefore at least two years past their expiration dates…

How often have you been agitating your ink cartridges?
How often have you been using the printer vs. how long does it sit unused?
What repair has been done to this printer?
Have the dampers been replaced within the past three years?
Are you printing from Mac or Windows? What operating system version?
What paper(s) are you printing on, what what curve(s) are you selecting?

Please let me know so I can help resolve this and get you back to happily printing.
Best regards~ Dana