Last night, while inspecting a print off my Epson 3880, my eyes met something very bad. At first, I didn’t believe what I saw. On second and third look, however the problem was still there. Staring me in the face. Ruining the print I was looking at.
OK. I’ll make another print. Hrm. Crap. Still there. No problem… I’ll check all the settings and make sure that I didn’t bump something. Nope. Everything looks good. Let’s try again. Shit. There it is again. Another print ruined. Here’s the problem looks like:
Can you see it? Magenta stripes across a black and white image?
Needless to say, that’s not good. After twenty or so more test prints, interspersed with head cleanings and alignment runs, I gave up and went to bed. This morning, Elizabeth—who just spent the last few years in college taking care of a fleet of high-end printers—came in and her immediate reaction was a simple and understated: “Oh dear…”
Eventually, after more troubleshooting and more test prints than I care to think about on expensive paper—the problem is less pronounced on papers with a smaller gamut and range than Epson Exhibition Fiber—we borrowed my friend Rick LePage’s 3880. The print from his printer was perfect. That firmly pointed to a hardware issue with my printer. The next stop was Pro Photo Supply to ask George—their printer guru—what he thought. He took a look at it and in less than five minutes was on the phone with somebody high up in Epson’s support organization. Lots of discussion ensued. Loupes came out. Scans were made and sent by email.
The short summary is that it seems to be a fascinating problem. It’s something that they’ve not seen before. There are a few theories, but nothing has been nailed down yet. Hey, if you’re going to have a problem, you might as well have a good one, right? Still, the fact that it’s a humdinger of a problem doesn’t change the fact that I’m only half way through a large print job.
Luckily, I have really great friends. This edition will get printed this week.
Posted by James Duncan Davidson.