transparency help

[strangedesign]

I have an epson 1430 with a CIS system. I just received my transparencies from Ryonet and went ahead and printed a test.

It came out horrible. I used high quality photo paper setting.

its not printing dark
theres lines where nothing printed (solid black box)
I printed this out of illustrator

does anyone know why its not printing in these certain spots?

[mckrazy]

do a nozzle check, head alignment and clean the heads as well

[strangedesign]

thanks, I cleaned the heads again. It seems like thats all I ever do with this cis system. Changing the preferences to 'Artisan Premium' makes it come out darker. I also took the 'high speed print' setting off. I think that also helped.

The print is dark, but when I hold it up to the light, you can still see through it. Will I have to double up transparencies, or am I preparing the file wrong?

[exxxlonghair]

If you are not using an all black system, you may want to try a test printing in 100% K instead of rich black. In Illustrator I think the settings I usually use are 720 x 720 dpi Premium Glossy Photo Paper (250) for the resolution and media. Under Print Settings, Color set to black, and Print quality set to Superfine 1440 dpi., High speed unchecked.

[StuJohnston]

On that note, I believe there is an option that is on by default in illustrator that forces black to output to rich black whether you want it to or not. You might want to check your settings.

I forgot that you are using a cis. That might be your problem as well. I recall someone I know having really bad banding when using a cis, but it magically went away when they went back to the oem cartridges.

[strangedesign]

Thanks guys, I looked into the illustrator preferences and saw that rich black was the default option.

I am not using an all black system (i use this printer for color as well) It is a 6 cart CIS system. yellow, black, light cyan, cyan, light magenta, and magenta.

When i printed with 100% black, 0% for the rest, it came out dark.
When i printed with 100% cyan, magenta, yellow and black it came out even darker.

When holding them up to a regular lightbulb, I can see a white light through the 100% black only.
The light turns reddish when looking through the 100% of each color.

Im in the process of going from a fluorescent exposure unit to a 400 watt metal halide unit. When the unit is done being built, Ill try to expose with just one transparency and see how that goes