When saving files should my pixel order as interleaved or per channel? Thanks!
Interleaved - no compression - no layers - and Gamma 2.20!
Ok, then that’s fine, and I’ve just printed a file that was printing perfect earlier this year. Still posterizing/noise where it was once perfectly smooth. All nozzles checking out, perfect print pattern, cleaned earlier tonight. All software re-installed, correct profile, ink in the right place as far as I’m concerned. I’m losing my mind over this!!! What is wrong!!
Are you still printing on Agfa film, or did you get some Pictorico OHP Ultra-Premium film?
Still Agfa Copyjet at the moment. My reason being that I haven’t got hold of any Pictorico yet. I will get some asap. I’m going to do a comparison of a negative printed on Agfa that printed perfectly last year to one printed now and see if there’s a difference. I think there will be. I understand you don’t support the film but I’ve had great results with it until recently. This makes me sincerely doubt the film is the issue.
I should mention that my monitor is seriously off-colour. I need to re-calibtate. Should this affect the way the inks respond to the file someone has sent me for printing? While I realize it will affect what I see on screen it shouldn’t cause posterization/grittiness in the final…
… neg should it? Those things seem incongruous to me.
My situation is that I have someone coming on a workshop to learn platinum printing with piezo negs in 4 weeks. I’m away from home for three of these so only have limited time to get things working. I’m going to have to advise against using it if I can’t get things going again. Seriously thinking of switching back to Epson abw
• Some or all of the inks may still be contaminated.
• The inks are not verified.
• You are using the wrong Piezography Curve.
• You are using the wrong media.
Perhaps the yellow cartridge has become damaged after mis-filling it and then rinsing out with distilled water to reinstate the correct ink. Is this possible? Would anything like this fail to show up on a nozzle check, cause all things point to it working, no printouts show missing gaps or banding.
I’ve ordered a new set of carts off eBay. I intend to start afresh to make sure everything is 100% in its place, albeit half filled cartridges are beginning to amass around my printer. Do you now sell shades 2.5 and 4.5 mixed? I just might have to order some just to be doubly sure things are correct. I am pretty sure I mixed the shades correctly, they can’t be that hard to mix 50/50 right?
Can you explain what you mean by ‘not verified’?
Can definitely rule out number 3, it’s the ‘platinum starting curve’ you sent I’m using.
I think wrong media is questionable, I’ve already got some beautiful prints out using Agfa Copyjet with Piezo before everything just crashed on me!
You messed your system up, you asked for help, we are trying to help you, you refuse to follow our advice. I don’t think that we can do anything further for you at this point other than reviewing your Calibration page which you can mail to us.
My recommendation is either to follow our instructions, or start over from scratch with fresh inks and cartridges and do it the way that you used to.
Hi Jarvman~
I have read thru this thread again to review the history.
Yes, shade 4.5 is 50% each shades 4 and 5, and shade 2.5 is 50% each shades 2 and 3.
I see you bought a set of WN ink bottles and a set of R2880 refillable carts in Jan 2014, so you are using the same inks and carts since the beginning.
If you have been shaking ink bottles before mixing and refilling carts every time, I suspect your ink is fine and that’s not the problem, since you were originally having good results with these exact same inks. Have inks been stored out of direct sunlight, sealed in our original bottles, and away from extreme temperatures?
Your monitor calibration being out of whack won’t effect your print output, but will make your print not match your monitor, which makes imaging difficult. You should always use a properly calibrated monitor when imaging files.
In the beginning, you had poor nozzle checks and ink separation print outs, both in print quality and density. After cleaning and refilling two carts in question, the nozzle check and ink separation print outs looked good as far as nozzles printing and smoothness, but we need to verify your inks are printing correct density. On 1/13 I asked you to print an Ink Separation image on Pictorico OHP Ultra-Premium film, and measure the 60% patch with your X-rite. We need you to print on the media we designed the system for, because that is the base- we do not have the Agfa film you’re using, so your measurements on the Agfa film will differ from our known good base measurements on Pictorico (we can not accurately compare your measurements on Agfa to our measurements on Pictorico).
We realize you have had success in the past with the same inks and curve on this Agfa film, and it may very well be the film is not the problem, but in order to eliminate variables and resolve your problem, we need to rule out variables and check your individual ink shade density.
Are you using Agfa film from the exact same box as you were when results were good, or are you now using a new box? I have certainly seen media change from box to box.
Earlier (post# 35 on 1/3), you said you’re printing negatives for silver printing, but then in your last post said you’re using our “Platinum starting curve”- can you please clarify this? For silver printing, you should simply invert and flip horizontal, then print with our PZDN-Meth 3 curve of the desired density (1.6 in your case), but if you’re applying the platinum curve, the results won’t be correct for silver… I know based on other threads that you’re doing both silver and platinum printing, but you’re giving mixed information in this thread (making it hard to follow and be sure of the workflow/settings), and I want to be sure of what you’re doing for silver printing. No matter what curve you’re using, or if you’re making negatives for silver or platinum printing, the individual ink densities need to be checked/verified before we can move forward.
Without checking your individual ink densities on a known media, there is nothing else we can do to troubleshoot your problem.
Please advise~ Dana
The Agfa film is from exactly the same box yes.
For platinum I am applying the platinum starter curve provided, inverting, saving as TIFF in the correct gamma/colour space/resolution then printing in QTR with a 1.8 curve
For silver I am simply inverting, saving as above and printing in QTR with a 1.6 curve
I’ve just given the printer a thorough cleaning and pushed through any potential blockages as detailed in the small printer maintenence video, re-installed a whole set of brand new cartridges, which are 100% filled with the correct shades, getting good nozzle checks and still the negs appear to show a nasty digitization, there are areas that look smooth on screen that are appearing with a disturbing blotchiness when printed as negs.
I attempted to find Pictorico in Japan. However I could only find TPU-100 film. I couldn’t find any other Pictorico film apart from the white film there which is completely bizarre to me as it’s its country of manufacture. As I can’t get your inks or Pictorico film in the UK I’m going to have to can this costly, time consuming and frustrating endeavor. I can’t understand why things have gone completely South when they were working fine a few months ago. I really thought that starting completely from scratch would get things working again, sadly not.
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