GMG with an Epson 9900

[jbarrie]

Hello,
I am working with a GMG color management system and plotting to an Epson 9900. Everything seemed to be going great for me until I received another proof from a customer and it's small type was very sharp, whereas my proof has much fuzzier text. Seems like we are both calibrated to G7 standards and using a calibration file with 720X1440. I can not figure out how to improve the quality and crispness of the text on my proofs... any ideas?

Thanks,
Jeff

 

[meddington]

GMG Colorproof has a means to apply sharpening to the proof. Check your settings…I can't remember what field allows this, but it is present.

 

[jbarrie]

Thanks for the hint about the sharpening. I did try the 3d sharpening and it seemed to help, but... I seemed to be limited to using the epson drivers (when I try using the GMG drivers I'm asked for an MXC profile). Is it possible that different drivers will render different dot patterns and perhaps a smoother sharper look? If so... I do not seem to have the ability to alter my MX4's into MXC's.

Thanks,
Jeff

 

[benstarr]

The GMG driver and Epson driver will render differently, so one can look sharper than the other.

Also bidirectional printing vs unidirectional printing does make a difference for sharpness and the width of very fine lines and type.

You should also do a head alignment on the Epson. This helps ensure that all the dot line up exactly where planned, this can also have an effect on the sharpness.

 

[jbarrie]

Thanks for the information! I'm going to investigate the GMG driver and test the dot pattern on it. Now, I need to figure out the MXC file format, for some reason I'm only able to save MX4 files. This doesn't seem to work with the GMG driver (it want's MXc's). I'm thinking that MXC is a locked format that only GMG is able to write; If that's the case I will have to be content with the epson driver and the fuzzy small text.

Thanks,
Jeff

 

[benstarr]

MXC is a locked format if you want to use the GMG Driver in 10c mode you need to use GMG paper. You can drive the printer with the Epson Driver or GMG driver in 8c mode using custom calibrations.

 

[jbarrie]

As I thought.

Thanks to everyone for answering my questions,
Jeff