Hi folks, I've got a few questions on getting the most out of my new inkjet printer. I finally picked up one this past week at a local retailer. It's Epson 820, and although it uses the less-permanent dye inks as opposed to the pigment inks of the Epson C80, I decided in favor of six-color (vs. four-color of the C80). I thought I'd learn whatever fundamentals I need to learn using Epson's less expensive heavyweight matte paper, then try some of the more expensive varieties once I get some practice.
I made a single 8x10 print of a large (~21 MB?) TIFF file last night. (A fairly tight head shot of my wife holding our youngest grandson.) It seems that there are a couple spots on the print where some highlights are blown out -- small part of a cheek (or was it a forehead), and small portion of the baby's very light-colored pajamas. Also, the dark background seems to have some very subtle granularity to it (banding is maybe the right term?) which is not present in the midtones or highlights. Almost like printing on a conventional paper with too little latitude -- too contrasty. I was just using the automatic printer settings and did not adjust the printer's gamma, and I set the paper selection to heavyweight matte (which I believe prints at the highest resolution of the printer -- 2880x720?). Anything in particular I should be adjusting here to optimize the appearance of the print? Or is this just typical of the relatively cheap ($15 for 50 sheets) matte paper? I'll try to post some images showing the original TIFF and scanned sections of the print. Meanwhile, any helpful hints would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance, Bill Peifer Rochester, NY - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
