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Notes from working with an Epson 7600 Printer

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I finally acquired a wide format 7600 printer in December 2004. It is a big machine, and during the first couple weeks I worked with it, I turned to many sources for tips and tricks. I collected below some of the advice I got that wasn't obvious or included in the manuals.

Paper Weight and Thickness

When selecting a media type in the print dialog, you are setting how the printer handles the thickness of the paper, the amount of ink to use, and the dither pattern to use. If you are using a non-Epson paper, you have to select the Epson paper that is closest in type (matte vs semi-matte) and thickness. Here are some comparisons of thickness of various matte papers.

Epson Doubleweight Matte 192 gsm 7.9 mils*
Epson Enhanced Matte 180 gsm 8.3 mils*
Epson Ultra Smooth Fine Art (roll) 250 gsm 15 mils*
Epson Ultra Smooth Fine Art (sheet) 325 gsm 21 mils*
Lexjet Premium Archival Matte 230 gsm 9.5 mil
Crane Museo 250 gsm 15 mils
Hahnemuhle Photo Rag 308 gsm 19.3 mils

Epson's Media Type Settings

Epson Tech Support gave me the following tip for determining how thick the various Epson papers are (the values used by the driver's "media type" option): Go to the Epson print driver, and under the "Print Settings" panel select the Media Type you are curious about. Then, change to the "Paper Configurations" panel. You will see a field called "Paper Thickness", with a value (e.g. 2 for Enhanced Matt). This is the value in multiples of 0.1mm for that paper's thickness. To determine the value in mils, multiply that by 0.03937 to convert to inches, then 1 mil = 0.001 inches.

Media Type and Imageprint

Imageprint also requires you to select a Media Type (In the print dialog, click the Options button). When selecting a media type in Imageprint, you are only setting how the printer handles the thickness of the paper (how it feeds throug the printer). IP overrides the printer's settings for the amount of ink to use and the dither pattern to use.

The Limits of Auto-Cutting

The auto-cutter should not be used regularly for papers greater than 10 mils. This includes most matte papers, including Epson's standard, Enhanced Matte.It will dull the knife fast, resulting in bad cuts. Replacement blade costs $90. Other suggestions for how to cut the paper:

To keep the waste down when cutting single prints: Load roll paper as if it were sheet. When the LCD reads 'Ready', switch the printer to "roll - cutter off". Print your image, and when finished scroll paper forward and cut it by hand. Re-load paper as in step 1 and repeat.

Horizontal Banding

"The most common cause of horizontal banding are missing or deflected nozzles or a clogged print head. Print a nozzle check pattern and examine the printout with a 10x or better eye loupe to see if you have any missing or deflected nozzles. If nozzles are missing or deflected, run a cleaning cycle and print your document again. If no nozzles are missing or deflected, make sure you are using the correct driver settings for the type of media you're printing on. Also try printing at a higher resolution and turn off high-speed (bi-directional) printing." (from Inkjetart's 7600/9600 FAQ)

Vertical Banding

"The most common cause of vertical banding is over-saturation of the media, usually created by paper "rippling". To correct this effect, decrease the saturation and lower the paper suction. If vertical banding is still apparent print the image with high speed off (uni-directional). If this corrects the issue, align the print head, as described on page 5-6 of the Users Guide." (from Inkjetart's 7600/9600 FAQ)

Thinner papers will be more prone to this, since they cannot absorb as much ink. Sometimes, one part of a roll can have this problem, while other parts do not. Or you may find that a paper that usually doesn't doesn't cause any problems will have a bad batch. If using Imageprint, change the print quality from "1440 4-pass" to "1440 8-pass". The extra passes means it lays down the ink in twice the number of steps, so each step receives half the amount of ink, and has a little more time to dry.

Positioning sheet paper up and down

You can use the up and down arrow buttons (above and below the label "paper feed") to feed roll paper up and down. If you have "paper source" set to sheet, these buttons won't work. So, if you need to reposition a sheet of paper, just set paper source to one of the Roll options first.

Using roll paper in Imageprint

Change the setting on the printer itself from sheet to roll. Then set up a custom user defined page size at 24 inches wide by however long I want the page to be coming off the roll. Select File > Print > Setup, and then uncheck Sheet, check Auto-Cut, and check Inked Area (this will stop printing after last image).

Some people recommend that if you have roll paper loaded, and are not printing for a while, that you should either (a) roll the paper up and clamp it tight with the paper band, or (b) at least lift the paper release level. This will prevent a the paper from developing a mark where it is being held down.

Ways to de-curl rolled paper

When using rolls of thicker paper, they have a tendency to remember their curl. It is therefore useful to somehow remove this curl. The most common way is to get a "de-curler", a simple tool that makes it easy to roll the print backwards against its curl, without damaging it. You can get one of these by...

7600 options, printer vs driver priority
The print driver has priority over all printer settings (the cutter being on, the platen width, the suction level, etc.) unless, if on the printer:
- the platen width is not set to "standard"
- one of the user-created paper profiles is used

Imageprint: Shadow Point Slider

According to Colobyte Tech Support, a value of 0 means no black point compensation is done, whereas a value of 100 means it is increased approx. 4%, which will lighten the image as the black point is moved up. However the increased intensity of the shadows can clog up the shadows as well. The values of this slider in version 6 are comparable to the same values used in version 5.6 (according to Colorbyte tech support).

Links for useful information