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Digital printing quality question. Why is it liney?
Hi guys.
I currently sub all my digital printing work out to a larger company in the next town & so far, we have had good results.
I’ve often seen their work on the bench & think ‘WOW!’ mine never looks that crisp, so with this in mind, I set out to make my next job brilliant. It was a chiselled effect font & was created in Photoshop at 1200DPi. When I zoomed in, it was near perfect. Hardly any pixeling at all.
I sent the file off & they even commented that it was a big file when upscaled. However, I’ve just fitted the finished text to my painstakingly hand painted sign (very rare these days) & when I peeled off the app tape, was greeted with a not too bad pixely, but horribly liney up close finish. It never looked like this on screen. Ok, it might not notice when up, but IMO, that’s besides the point.
I’m paying £45 per sq metre (laminated) & expect the finish to be perfect. I have insider gossip that they use 4 pass instead of 8 pass on all their work, even their own, but I have my doubts, as, like I said, the stuff on their bench & indeed their own van, looks so much crisper & richer in every way.
Am I being paranoid, or is something amiss? I will be having words on Monday, no doubt, but before I wade in, I’d appreciate your guys thoughts.
Oh, I can’t remember the make of machine, but I know it’s a good one & has 1440 DPi output.
Many thanks,
Gwaredd.
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17 Replies
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at 1200 dpi you may be expecting to much,
how big is the print for starters?Peter
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DPi has nothing at all in relation to resolution when enlarging you can have all the DPi you like but if it comes out at 72 PPi then you run into problems, re sampling changes an image etc you have to check your image size and resolution in pixels on the final article basically. I had a very very long chat with my London printing company who does my photos & books and it finally made sense, I had given them a 600 dpi 400 Megabyte image but when blown up to A0 it was pixellated,
I cant explain it all here here its too long and boring on a friday night but google "dpi and resolution" its a common mistake people make when printing and can be a disastrous one -
dpi and res are related, its size and viewing distance that determines whats best, and practical to print, a huge building wrap can and must be done at say 35dpi, or less, otherwise the rip would die,trying to proceess the info.
1200 dpi on a square metre to process would take forever, but the output would still only be 120 dpi, cant explain why, but thats how it is, I fink
Peter
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Let me rephrase
If you do a design at A4 and 1200 dpi it wont blow up to poster size just because its 1200 dpi
the resolution in pixels must of decent size, IE A0 at 120 Dpi will be better than an A4 at 1200 dpi maybe I explained it badly
What peter says is pretty much what I meant
Like I say Its friday night
I should be at a festival but was raining so bad i didnt fancy pitching my tend in the rain.
Will go tomorrow -
Steve, you know, I know, cant explain, tried to tell my customers, and their designers, do they listen? NO
I still get files as big as the world for an A2 print,
I’m no expert, just speaking from recent experience
Peter
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Ha Ha thats why I said Google it,
Hard to begin to understand.
Now I finally got it, hard to bloody explain! :lol1: -
As an aside, I have customers that ask "my graphic designer would like to know the resolution you need"
My answer is "tell him the size of the print, and he should know"
as said I am no expert, only what I have learned since buying my mimaki.
Peter
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dont think he means resolution but lining in the print.
caused by poor set up etc.
how far apart are these lines 6 or 3 mm apart quick guesschris
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banding Chris ?
Lynn
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liney sounds nicer.
yes i think he does mean banding but the word eluded me at the time.
one of my senior moments, i have so many these daysChris
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so do I Chris, but agree banding is a set up problem, just off ? don’t know where 🙄
Lynn
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I think Gwaredd is referring to banding in the print. This can be a result of head alignment or media feed problems with the printer, but more commonly is the result of blocked or deflected print head nozzles. Sounds like the printer might be due for a service.
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I had this recently, sent a sample of my print to the roland repair centre, because it got worse the more it printed.
The tech said it sounded like a new head. He came out and did a test print, the heads were fine, a few nozzles gone, but by in large, OK
After being there for nearly 2 hours playing about, pulling the damn thing apart, he turned the heater down, and the banding disappeared. It was a new one to him, but I’d recently changed the material I print to, and it didn’t require the same amount of heat. That could be one cause.
The other is that the colour the machine is trying to produce may be difficult for the machine to render. I’ve noticed this in some of the greens and blues that my clients send me to reproduce. Reds, yellows and blacks on the same print can be fine though.
I’d say if they have been producing good stuff in the past, they may need a service, or it could simply be that the heat was too high on the machine for that material when it went through. I still get caught from time to time, but if the sign is not viewed up close, I don’t worry about it.
I was at a park the other day, looking at a job that I didn’t get, and the job was so bad other people were commenting on it publicly. It was a very dark green and really liney. I’m sort of glad I didn’t get the job, but that said, my samples I supplied with the tender were nowhere near as bad as the ones the won the job.
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banding is a pain, new heads are likely to be on the printers mind at the moment but big cost… as soon as deflection starts on the nozzles it gets costly for them.
Recently i had a length alignment issue, say your doing a fascia print onto dibond panel… the print either finishes 10mm short of your dibond panel or 10mm too long. Its all to do with printing and adjusting feedrates, however we recently had to allow greater feed rates to get the print longer so we then laminate it (which can stretch too) and hope it is oversize or spot on the panel.
Small stickers lines need to sorted, however when it is big and up high it isn’t as important but can cause measurements issues when you try and fix it.
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We have had banding from heater settings too high / too low, variations in the temperature in the print room (now climate controlled), using the stock profiles that came with the machine even for the correct media, scrim banner fiber that got stuck under the print-head carriage. There’s a lot of things that can cause it.
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Cheers for the replys guys. Sounds like digital printing is one big headache! RE the DPi, yes, this was fine, it was the banding I was more annoyed about.
Funny thing is, I took a sample of some of my brothers work (he’s got a 2.1 in Graphic Design, so he’s not bad) to a Versacamm demo day & the quality was stunning. I still have the prints here some 3 years (or whatever) later.
I’d bet a large amount of money, that if I sent the same file out to various sub contractors, none would come back anywhere as good as the demo prints. I honestly think that only ‘special’ work gets the full whack treatment & all other stuff is sent through on some kind of fast print setting.
Why the pricing isn’t structured around this I don’t know. If 4 pass printing was £40 psm & 8 pass was £80 psm, we could at least offer the choice to the customer & we’d know what we’d be getting. At the moment, I feel it’s a bit of a lucky dip. I wonder if other sign makers who buy their prints in feel the same?
Cheers,
Gwaredd.
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quote Steele Signs:Cheers for the replys guys. Sounds like digital printing is one big headache! RE the DPi, yes, this was fine, it was the banding I was more annoyed about.
Funny thing is, I took a sample of some of my brothers work (he’s got a 2.1 in Graphic Design, so he’s not bad) to a Versacamm demo day & the quality was stunning. I still have the prints here some 3 years (or whatever) later.
I’d bet a large amount of money, that if I sent the same file out to various sub contractors, none would come back anywhere as good as the demo prints. I honestly think that only ‘special’ work gets the full whack treatment & all other stuff is sent through on some kind of fast print setting.
Why the pricing isn’t structured around this I don’t know. If 4 pass printing was £40 psm & 8 pass was £80 psm, we could at least offer the choice to the customer & we’d know what we’d be getting. At the moment, I feel it’s a bit of a lucky dip. I wonder if other sign makers who buy their prints in feel the same?
Cheers,
Gwaredd.
Mate, I do a lot of subcontract work here, for other shops. When I do a sample to get their work, I note the settings I used, and they get those setting everytime. In truth though, all my settings are usually the same – 8 pass, 720dpi. That way my clients get the same job everytime. I’m my worst critic tho. If I will not accept the job for one of my clients, I’ll usually do it again. I have a very good reputation amongst my sign shops that I work for, but I’m not the cheapest either. They know they’ll get consistency though.
If someone want a cheap price from me, I’m still not going to be the cheapest. I lost a client to my opposition a few months back. He was in trouble and his new supplier couldn’t help him, so he asked me to do the job at whatever price. He didn’t care because it had to get done. I worked through the night to get him out of trouble and when he picked up the job, he said the quality I supplied was miles ahead of the other guy, but I was too expensive.
I told him – Quality, service, Price – I’ll supply any two. I was happy to supply a quality job at a low price, but I would not have work through the night to supply the service.
So many guys are offering cheap prices out there, but don’t expect a fantastic job.
Perhaps if you suggest to your supplier you’d pay a better rate for a more consistent job, they may be more interested.
Or perhaps the guy doing your job that day was inexperienced, and there was no money in it to do it again.
Obviously I don’t know whatever the reason was, but as a subcontract supplier, it really comes down to price some times….
Hope you get it sorted though.
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