Solved: Questions re: gloss printing with Piezo 2 on an R2880

InkjetMall Customer Support Piezography Inks & Printing
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I called IJM yesterday to ask why P2 didn’t have a GO curve. The person I spoke with explained that there is not a separate GO curve for gloss in P2. I should just use the “regular” curve with a second pass through the printer for GO coat. Later on I realized I wasn’t quite sure how I’d do that. How would the printer “Know” whether I was using the curve for the first or second pass. I guess I’m just confused.

I have some other Q’s about the process, though:

  1. Do I print thru QTR at 1440dpi and bidirectional speed. This is what the New Manual says to do for K7 GO.
  2. Do I make a 1x1 inch pure white image at 300ppi in photoshop to use with GO. Again, this is per manual for K7. I used Levels slider to far right to make a pure white image from an existing image. This should work, right. Does it matter if the image is larger than 1x1 inch.
  3. Does this image need to be a TIFF file.
  4. For K7 the manual says you can edit the GO curve to adjust how much GO is used. I assume this can’t be done with P2, as there is no GO curve.

I looked at the knowledge base and this forum, but couldn’t anything. I know P2 is new (not even available on web site yet), so I apologize in advance to IJM team if I’ve caused any problems by ordering P2 a little early.

I think that’s it. Thanks in advance for your help.

David

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Hi David~

Piezography 2 isn’t officially released yet, but I have privately emailed some curves to a few customers who are already set up for P2 and ready to print. I actually just (literally, this morning) completed the P2 curve libraries, so Piezography 2 will be officially released very soon!! The GO curve for glossy printing with the regular K7 system works with the new P2 system as well, because the Gloss Overprint is in the LLK position with both setups. I can email you the GO curve if you have trouble finding it on our site.

  1. You want to print the ink image with the glossy curve specific to the printer model, ink and paper combination you’re using, at 2880dpi and bi-directional speed for the best quality. Then dry the print and reload the sheet into the printer to print the GO layer over the entire sheet. The GO layer can be printed at 1440dpi, bi-directional speed.

  2. You can make any custom “GO” printing image that you want. Just know that GO will ONLY print in PURE white image area, so if you print the 1x1" white square and select the paper size of your image, GO will print evenly over the entire sheet of paper (maximum printable area, QTR doesn’t support borderless printing). If you want to print GO on a controlled area of the paper and not over the entire sheet, make a new image that is the same size as the paper you’re printing on, and make the whole image black (or anything other than white). Now, select and delete the area you DO want GO to print, so the area is white. Print this image by selecting the paper size, and selecting proceed when the error pops up saying your image is bigger than the printable area of the paper you selected, then select the GO curve in QTR and GO will print in the white area, and not in the black.

  3. The GO printing image can be any file type supported by QuadTone RIP.

  4. The GO curve is the same for both the K7 and P2 systems, so can be modified. It sounds like you don’t have the GO curve- I will email it to you directly.

Please let me know if you have further questions or if there’s anything else I can help you with.
Best regards and happy printing~ Dana :slight_smile:

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Hi Dana,

Thanks for the quick reply. Also, I received the GO curve you sent.

Your thorough answers clear up a lot of things for me.

I do have one Q, though. You wrote about printing the ink image (first pass through printer):

“You want to print the ink image with the glossy curve specific to the printer model, ink and paper combination you’re using, at 2880dpi and bi-directional speed for the best quality.”

Some parts of the New Manual seem to say unidirectional will result in the best quality. Here from the manual:

“The Speed setting gives you a choice of Unidirection
or Bidirectional. In Bi-directional printing
the print head prints in both directions and is
much quicker. Most printers can produce highquality
prints in bi-directional mode. However,
some printers cannot. It’s simply a luck of the
draw. However, uni-directional produces a
magnificent print.”

“Print an image with the K7-glossy curve specific to your printer model and paper at 2880dpi and unidirectional
speed.”

Of course the above applies to the K7 set. So, to finally get to the point, is the P2 system different than K7 in that one should print the ink image on bi-directional rather than uni-directional?

Thanks again to Dana and the rest of the team. The customer support has been great.

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Apparently I’m doing too many things at once! Yes- I meant 2880dpi, uni-directional speed for best quality.

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