TurboPrint & PrintFab

I was trying to print out some black text that I wanted to look good---mostly I don't care about that much. I have paper set to "plain" and I printed in "high - 600dpi" and the text looks kind of fuzzy. It doesn't look as good as my last canon printer on the same paper (Coronado SST vellum). I have tried a few different papers and experimented a bit. It seemed like I do better if I set the ink limit lower, because I was getting successive pages sticking to each other and smearing. But even so I have a problem with the fuzziness of the print. I examined it under 10x magnification and it appears that there is a shadow, like some of the dots are offset a bit. It is a very clear problem when seen under magnification.

When I print in "medium - 300 dpi" mode the text looks crisper than in "high - 600dpi". And when I took a look under magnification I see that the dot pattern is more sparse, but the dots all seem to be correctly placed.

I am wondering if this means I have a bad printer, or if this is something I can correct somehow in turboprint.

Hello,

several points should be considered regarding "fuzzy prints":

- did your perform a "Nozzle test print" and a "Print head alignment"? (TurboPrint Control -> dialog "Toolbox")

- are you using Canon inks or compatible inks? Some compatible inks tend to print "fuzzier" at high resolution.

- ink oversaturation might cause fuzzy looking fonts (depending on the paper) - you could try to reduce ink volume using TurboPrint's "intensity" setting

- to determine the print mode of the TurboPrint driver (media, quality and other settings), you should post the TurboPrint log file
/var/log/turboprint/print.log

- you might also post a scan or digicam photo of the printout (if the problem is visible in the photo)

I did do a Nozzle test and print head alignment and also black printhead clean and deep cleaning.

I am using canon branded ink.

I cannot find the "intensity" setting. I tried to reduce ink under "ink limit" which helped the problem of successive pages sticking together but not the problem of fuzziness. Sections of text in bold face look noticeably wet on the page at the default. There may still be too much ink.

However, I would expect ink oversaturation to lead to a bleed, where the ink creates fuzziness by spreading out. What I see looks like a more controlled process, like each letter is double printed, once correctly and once faintly with just a few dots and offset from the main image.

Here I have posted high resolution 1200 dpi scans of the output which I think show the effect when you zoom in and view them at full resolution. (This forum was very restrictive, telling me my files were too big > 256Kb or that they have forbidden extensions.)

https://picasaweb.google.com/hummingjoni/PrintTests#

Thank you for the images and the log file!

The "Intensity" setting can be found in TurboPrint Control -> dialog "Config" -> tab "Main". This is the "default setting". In most application it is possible to adjust the driver settings from the print dialog, the setting in the print dialog is called "Save ink - reduce intensity".

From the log file I could see the settings paper type = "Plain paper" and print quality = "300x300dpi" and "600x600dpi". You could also try the highest print quality (2400dpi or 9600dpi depending on the media type).

Another question: What kind of paper is "Coronado SST vellum"?

If it is a coated inkjet paper or (semi-)glossy inkjet paper, you might have to select a different "Paper / Medium" in TurboPrint Control or in the print dialog. Canon's pigmented black ink is not suitable for coated or glossy paper - the ink is not scratch resistant and might also be the reason for the "fuzzy" text. With the settings "Inkjet paper" or "Glossy paper" the other black ink is used instead (smaller ink cartridge with dye black).

The tests I posted were done on uncoated, cheap office paper. I do not notice a difference in the print output between that and the Coronado SST. The "SST" stands for "special surface treatment" but it's not clear *what* that means. They claim it's supposed to improve printing performance, and with my previous canon printer (iP3500) the print was crisp on this paper. The paper does not appear to be coated the way that photo paper is coated, for example. It has a rough surface texture.

In order to make the 2400 resolution available I have to change the paper setting. With "plain paper" this resolution is not an option. If I'm printing on regular paper what setting would I choose to make the 2400 resolution available? Or should I print on a sheet of photo paper to test? I guess I could print on some very old Epson branded coated papers and see the result. These are coated.

The fact that the fuzziness is directional (I get extra dots upwards and to the right of the text) suggests to me that this is not a problem relating to ink type or paper choice. Wouldn't those sorts of problem be caused by diffusion after the ink hits the paper, and hence they would be uniform (isotropic)?

I looked again and still cannot find the "intensity" setting. In the "main" tab I do have Saturation, Brightness and Contrast. Could you mean one of those?

I also realized that I can select "super - 2400dpi" with plain paper, so I did a test like that. I find the results interesting. Testing on plain ordinary paper I find that the result is crisper than the "high - 600 dpi" output. Also it appears lighter, like less ink is used. The letters give less ink coverage---I see some bits of white paper showing through in between the dot pattern. It is as if this is intermediate between the "medium --300" and the "high - 600" settings. I still have the ink limits lowered, if that makes any difference. I raised them back up and didn't see much change. I note that on this setting it does not appear that I have a pool of ink on the page like seems to happen with "high - 600 dpi" in the boldface text areas. Clearly less ink is being used.

Do you have any comments on my results? It seems odd that the "2400" setting is using less dots and less ink than the "600" setting. Could it be a tuboprint bug?

I don't think that more ink is applied at 600dpi. The ink tends to "bleeds" more if the print speed is higher, so 600dpi may look a bit more saturated than 2400dpi.

I can send you a driver file + description by email how to "fine tune" ink amounts for individual print modes - please let me know if you are interested.

Considerably more ink is applied in 600 dpi mode than in 2400 dpi mode. So much that the pages stick together and I get smearing and marks on the back of the next page if I don't snatch them off the printer as they come out and let them dry separately. When I examine the bold face parts of the output they look wet, like pools of ink. These bold face parts are what sticks to the next page.

When I examine the 2400 dpi output under 10x magnification I see white speckles of paper showing through in the middle of the letters. When I examine the 600 dpi output the same way it is entirely black across the line, with no white paper showing through the ink.

If you think that "fine tuning" the inks in the different modes is the right answer then please send this information. (I think the tuning required goes beyond "fine".)

I thought a bit more about this. Normally the way I set things up is with different print queues that print to the same printer at different quality levels. So I'm not sure I need the ability to tweak the ink use for different resolutions. I can set up the 600 dpi print queue and set the ink use settings for that one, and it won't affect the others that I have set up for fast printing at 300 dpi or photo printing, etc. The main thing would be which settings to change to get appropriate ink use. Before you wrote about an "intensity" setting, which I couldn't find.