Digital BW, The Print

Hello Keith,

>Thanks for the additional info Clayton.  With what you wrote, I was able to get on the right track with the testing and stop wasting time without a testing direction.  Since there is such a tiny amount of information available about these settings, your insight was much appreciated.

Glad it was helpful.  K3/ABW isn't a perfect system, but it's very good and with a bit of care and attention is capable of producing superb prints.  I tend to have spells of intense printing activity with slack periods in between, so I have evolved a regular routine of periodic nozzle tests during inactive times to prevent clogs and reduce cleaning cycles, and also doing a tone comparison whenever beginning an important printing session.  These have, over the long haul, ensured a good level of consistency and kept problems at a minimum.  The 2400 has been an outstanding printer.


>I found that the shift I aquired after swapping both the M and LM carts was pretty excessive as I wound up have to move the horizontal toward the green much more than you discussed in order to get back to a neutral black.  

That sounds like a strong production batch difference. If you keep notes, or just pay close attention and do occasional tone comparisons with a reference print, over time you'll see a pattern and you can almost predict what's going to happen when you change a cart. Even if you get surprised, by something like this one, you can usually make the adjustments quickly and get back to work.

 
> Since I was testing this on EEM, I'll now try other papers to see what needs to be done on them.  At least now I have a testing plan that should work.

Speaking of papers, I have on occasion seen a tone difference among different production batches of the same paper.  Not often, and it's usually subtle, but it can happen.  But if you have a good testing routine in place you can catch these things and adjust to them quickly and not get derailed.

Regards,
Clayton


Info on black and white digital printing at    
http://www.cjcom.net/digiprnarts.htm
I-Trak 2.1   http://www.cjcom.net/itrak.htm