Blurred dot/marks Epson Pro7800

[vwyob]

Greets again guys.
I have recently noticed unsharp dot on the tail edge of the film. Its more a motion blur look to be honest. The front edge is not too bad but towards the back edge varies from annoying to concerning. Its a roll fed Epson pro 7800 using Agfa Select Jet. Its causing issues with halftone consistency. The heads have been cleaned and aligned and no change.

Some pics attached. My apologies for the poor quality. Its not camera shake, this is the state of the image. Also the density does not appear to be good.

Any ideas gratefully received.

 

[3Deep]

If you can see it with the naked eye from standard view point then yes you got a problem, but IMHO if you have to have a loupe to see it your fine to burn screens and printing, you might never see it in the final print under normal view. What halftone counts and screens or you trying to hold.

Darryl

[blue moon]

are you saying it's bad left to right or front to back of the feed?

pierre

[blue moon]

how many ink cartridges are you using?

pierre

[Dottonedan]

Looks to be catching somewhere (with a little drag) or skip. Maybe a lump of ink on the roller. I'm not sure, but thats what it looks like. Maybe even not enough tension as it rolls out. Just a hair?  ??

[Dottonedan]

Looks to be drag.  Look at that top image (the solid area).  Shows streak marks.  Solid on the left, then fades out with streaks of darker and lighter areas. I don't print films so, just guessing.

[vwyob]

Thanks for the swift replies guys. Screens are 120 (uk ) 305's US? And on 65 lpi. Using two blacks Pierre and the issue is front to back. Dan those streaks on the block are running right to left buddy. Could it be a tension issue? The out feed rollers are clean.

[Dottonedan]

I'm not sure.  I don't print films so I'm jsut going by my thinking alone (and thats dangerous as it is). What is interesting tho, is that the top (halftones) both seem to be fading to the left, indicating that you are getting more dot spread on the right sides of each square (as if) the square had a fade in it rather than a consistent %.  Lets say that one square was 25% fill. It looks more like 20% on the left side of the square and gets darker (25%) to the right of it.  Strange.  This could be drag, (or this same issue your having) ....but if that were the case, you would see the same "constancy" across the entire square of each section.


I wonder if you have a higher resolution setting on your rip?  Some have 720x720 some have 1440x and some have 2880 (or something like that).  Try the higher settings and see how much difference it makes in the outcome.


By the way, those dots don't look dense enough for making a good screen of 65 lpi.  Looks to be half as opaque as it probably should (based on pics alone).

[vwyob]

I agree completely about the opacity buddy. We are running the Wasatch RIP at 1440 settings 60/40 elliptical. I have lowered the freq to 55 now because it is helping blast out the image. We print a lot of mirrored image t-shirts. This is when the film issue is apparent. The image at the front edge (side, on garment) of the actual print is sharper and looks cleaner than the its mirrored, back edge opposite. The guys are playing with press pressures to try and improve thing but the problem lies here in pre-press and I am keen to alleviate the headache its causing them.
The inks are Epson Light Light Black and Photo Black, printed on Agfa Select Jet at 1440 via Wasatch. It may be worth dropping a line to Epson and see if they can shed any light.
I appreciate the help, thank you.

[Dottonedan]

Might be inks.  I see printer changing inks (away from the epson inks) all the time. THey get I think richer, darker inks.  Epson inks were never designed for what we do. (fine halftones) constraining the single color black into a sharp tiny dot for reproduction. 


I've seen Pierre switch to a few dif inks and also films. FIlm can make difference as well.