Ink/solvent migration in matt papers

[jacekldn]

I completed a large print project recently (a 132-page photobook) on a dye-based inkjet printer. I decided to use matt paper, but in the future I might switch to lustre/pearl papers due to two issues: pizza wheel damage to the surface of matt papers and ink migration into the areas adjacent to photos. I noticed that dark green is the biggest (most noticeable) culprit here. I wonder if you have experienced it yourselves and found ways to mitigate it? On my printer, ET-8550, the effect is most noticeable on bright white matt papers along the left edge of an area of dark green. This does not happen on lustre or pearl papers. Is it common to all dye-based ink printers or just the ET-8550 inks?

 

[mike earussi]

You should not get any color migration if you used a good quality inkjet paper and the dpi doesn't exceed 600dpi, the coating should prevent that. But you can get some bleeding using matte paper if you set the dpi too high. 600dpi shouldn't cause any problems but 1200-2400 dpi can cause some bleeding as the amount of ink applied increases with an increase in dpi.

If you are using uncoated plain printer paper bleeding can easily be a problem.

 

[jacekldn]

I used Fotospeed Duo HWS Lite and Canson Infinity Rag Photographique Duo, both in black and white mode (Neutral), both bleed a lot. When I use paper manufacturers' ICC profiles, there is less bleeding, but it is still there. There is no bleeding on Permajet Lustre Double Sided with the Permajet ICC profile. Using a lower DPI is one thing I have not tried. I'll try that! Thanks for the tip.

 

[Gesture]

Extremely interesting. Not something I would expect. Will have to examine some of my matte prints more closely.

 

[JpPeretti]

You should not get any color migration if you used a good quality inkjet paper and the dpi doesn't exceed 600dpi, the coating should prevent that. But you can get some bleeding using matte paper if you set the dpi too high. 600dpi shouldn't cause any problems but 1200-2400 dpi can cause some bleeding as the amount of ink applied increases with an increase in dpi.

If you are using uncoated plain printer paper bleeding can easily be a problem.

I would have expected that the ink quantity was only a matter of rendering a density of color?

Are you sure that ppi affects the ink density?

JPierre

 

[mike earussi]

You should not get any color migration if you used a good quality inkjet paper and the dpi doesn't exceed 600dpi, the coating should prevent that. But you can get some bleeding using matte paper if you set the dpi too high. 600dpi shouldn't cause any problems but 1200-2400 dpi can cause some bleeding as the amount of ink applied increases with an increase in dpi.

If you are using uncoated plain printer paper bleeding can easily be a problem.

I would have expected that the ink quantity was only a matter of rendering a density of color?

Are you sure that ppi affects the ink density?

JPierre

There was a printing seminar hosted by B&H many years ago

(

)

with a tech from Epson who stated that explicitly. He basically said that it accomplishes nothing to have a higher dpi setting that 720 because all it does is take more time to print and wastes ink as the higher the dpi setting the more ink is put on the paper.

I also verified this by my own experimentation.

 

[Adam2]

I completed a large print project recently (a 132-page photobook) on a dye-based inkjet printer. I decided to use matt paper, but in the future I might switch to lustre/pearl papers due to two issues: pizza wheel damage to the surface of matt papers and ink migration into the areas adjacent to photos. I noticed that dark green is the biggest (most noticeable) culprit here. I wonder if you have experienced it yourselves and found ways to mitigate it? On my printer, ET-8550, the effect is most noticeable on bright white matt papers along the left edge of an area of dark green. This does not happen on lustre or pearl papers. Is it common to all dye-based ink printers or just the ET-8550 inks?

Dye inks are absorbed into the substrate and can bleed if the paper becomes saturated. Lustre/pearl papers will have more robust coatings so bleeding is less likely. I'm assuming that you are using the proper settings for the matte papers

https://dtm-print.eu/media/ink/dyebased-pigmented-ink.jpg

 

[JpPeretti]

There was a printing seminar hosted by B&H many years ago

(

)

with a tech from Epson who stated that explicitly. He basically said that it accomplishes nothing to have a higher dpi setting that 720 because all it does is take more time to print and wastes ink as the higher the dpi setting the more ink is put on the paper.

I also verified this by my own experimentation.

OK, thank you for sharing that.

JPierre

 

[JpPeretti]

Dye inks are absorbed into the substrate and can bleed if the paper becomes saturated. Lustre/pearl papers will have more robust coatings so bleeding is less likely. I'm assuming that you are using the proper settings for the matte papers

https://dtm-print.eu/media/ink/dyebased-pigmented-ink.jpg

As for myself, yes, I do

JPierre

 

[jacekldn]

I may have found a way out of this problem. The bleeding of ink occurs when I use the paper manufacturers' medium set to Velvet Fine Art. When I set medium to Epson Matte and set quality to Quality instead of High Quality there is no bleeding.

I am printing from Affinity Publisher. Frustratingly, quality settings in Affinity Publisher or Pixelmator Pro have different names than quality settings in Epson Print Layout for the same kind of media.

 

[JpPeretti]

I may have found a way out of this problem. The bleeding of ink occurs when I use the paper manufacturers' medium set to Velvet Fine Art. When I set medium to Epson Matte and set quality to Quality instead of High Quality there is no bleeding.

I am printing from Affinity Publisher. Frustratingly, quality settings in Affinity Publisher or Pixelmator Pro have different names than quality settings in Epson Print Layout for the same kind of media.

Thank you for this clue; but doesn't this option exclude the pigment black ink use?

JPierre

 

[jacekldn]

Potentially. I have no way of verifying which inks are used with Epson Matte.

 

[JpPeretti]

Potentially. I have no way of verifying which inks are used with Epson Matte.

Mr Cooper has investigated about that (spectrophotometer); only vfa mode uses pigment black ink.

I have not tested my Epson Archival Matte for BW with other mode(s) than vfa, which is said giving the "blackest black" (better Dmax)

JPierre

 

[jacekldn]

I am not going to question Keith's research into the matter. However, even he says in his videos that what ultimately counts is how the photos look. And I must admit that I was positively surprised when I compared the same print done using Matte media with its VFA equivalent. The VFA print had more saturated blacks, but it also had less detail, almost as if there was too much ink of the page.

As Keith admits, ET-8550 is not a pro printer and has its limitations that we have to live with. I intend to use it for experimentation and preparation of prints that will be printed by a commercial print facility using pigment inks. It's just cheaper to do a few versions of the print in A3 on an ET-8550 than it is to do it on a pigment ink printer, even at home.

 

[JpPeretti]

....

As Keith admits, ET-8550 is not a pro printer and has its limitations that we have to live with. I intend to use it for experimentation and preparation of prints that will be printed by a commercial print facility using pigment inks. It's just cheaper to do a few versions of the print in A3 on an ET-8550 than it is to do it on a pigment ink printer, even at home.

You're perfectly right! The 8550 definitely not a pro printer; nevertheless, the vfa settings seem to allow a rather godd level of black density; perhaps it is possible "to tweak the curve" (generic naming) in order to get other intermediate values more "than" acceptable; I am in a hurry to experiment it ... with a new unit.

Dear Epson, please ...

JPierre

 

[jacekldn]

I don't think the fault is with the hardware, but with the software. It just doesn't make sense that the same photo printed on the same paper, but with two different media settings would have a ghastly stain when printed using VFA and a perfectly clean margin when printed using Epson Matte. While you could perhaps blame the pigment ink, that line of thinking fails for me when I look at prints with dark green areas, those too have nasty stains in the margin. For my own purposes, when I compared bw prints done using Matte media and VFA media, I actually prefer those done using Matte media, because they do not have a visible colour cast of a VFA bw print. I wish Epson would implement an equivalent of Canon's new "Grayscale printing" mode as discussed by Keith Cooper in

Let us know what you find out when you get a new unit.

 

[JpPeretti]

I don't think the fault is with the hardware, but with the software. It just doesn't make sense that the same photo printed on the same paper, but with two different media settings would have a ghastly stain when printed using VFA and a perfectly clean margin when printed using Epson Matte. While you could perhaps blame the pigment ink, that line of thinking fails for me when I look at prints with dark green areas, those too have nasty stains in the margin. For my own purposes, when I compared bw prints done using Matte media and VFA media, I actually prefer those done using Matte media, because they do not have a visible colour cast of a VFA bw print. I wish Epson would implement an equivalent of Canon's new "Grayscale printing" mode as discussed by Keith Cooper in

Makes sense... but why only for some units? Software is supposed to be the same. Perhaps checking the firmware version(s) (Should I launch a poll?).

Let us know what you find out when you get a new unit.

I hope it happens, I'm keeping my fingers crossed. ;o)

JPierre

EDIT (from the other post)

How old is your 8550?

You suggest it could be a software problem; my firmware version is 05.46.OP30O9

Is yours the same?

 

[jacekldn]

When it comes to settings, my choices are limited by the media I select. When I select to print on VFA, there is only one quality setting (High Quality), when I pick Epson Matte paper I have two choices: Quality and High Quality. I am printing from Affinity Publisher or Pixelmator Pro. Printing from EPL doesn't work for me when I want to print double-sided book signatures (N-Up) and include registration marks and crop marks. I can "fix" the overspray problem by printing borderless within the page and the trimming it off like in the example below, but I cannot get rid of it if the images are smaller than the size of the page.

 

[JpPeretti]

When it comes to settings, my choices are limited by the media I select. When I select to print on VFA, there is only one quality setting (High Quality), when I pick Epson Matte paper I have two choices: Quality and High Quality. I am printing from Affinity Publisher or Pixelmator Pro. Printing from EPL doesn't work for me when I want to print double-sided book signatures (N-Up) and include registration marks and crop marks. I can "fix" the overspray problem by printing borderless within the page and the trimming it off like in the example below, but I cannot get rid of it if the images are smaller than the size of the page.

Thank you

I don't want to print borderless as a workaround: ink garbage that goes into the maintenance tank; I'll use this option when I really want this aesthetic aspect.

JPierre

 

[jacekldn]

Printing smaller and trimming margins off is a solution that avoids messing up the internals. Doesn't help if you do want to keep margins.