For Piezography ™BW images, there will be at least four approximate tonal regions, 100%-75%, 75%-50%, 50%-25%, 25%-0%. These rough tonal areas correspond to each ink in use. For a colour image in a colour printer, you will need to do the same visualisation for the colours in your image, CcMmY or K!

The following discussion assumes that the print was printed in portrait mode - the print head physically moves left-to-right across the image.

All images are representational of problems, and can not accurately show exactly what you might see in a print.

Darkened lines across the printout: This signifies a poor paper-feed! It is often hidden by normal Epson dither patterns... but can occasionally (apparently) be seen in Piezography prints where the printer is not up to specification. Check that the paper-thickness lever is set appropriately for you paper, realign the printer, and try again.

The cause of the problem can be confirmed by printing an image of a known length, and carefully measuring the printed length of the image. If the printed image is more than about 1/8th inch shorter than the image source, then paper feed is the problem.

If the dark lines are paired with slightly lighter lines, then the problem is likely caused by a deflected nozzle, that should be visible on a nozzle-check.

Could be caused by poor alignment for this paper on this paper-thickness-lever setting.

Lines of a particular colour or tone (often black) running across the print, at random intervals: Seems to be an indicator that your printhead has died, or is dying slowly. Some people report that cleaning can actually solve this problem (e.g. cleaning under the printhead, using an appropriate cleaning fluid) but normally only temporarily.

Unfortunately, your print head is quite possibly ‘fried’ and will need replacement, or possibly a new printer is called for. Check out our pages on repairs.

Note: We recently experienced this problem on an old 1270, with random black or single-colour lines across the page in sets. We were able to reproduce it just by tugging on the trailing edge of the page as the printer was trying to print. That is to say, it may not be your printhead but a number of issues coming together (including paper feed) that end up causing some electronic oddities in the printout. Try seeing if a nozzle-check or alignment print routine create similar lines - we’d be interested to hear!

A slight ‘Weave’ pattern seems to appear in the print: This is difficult to describe and represent... and of course if you are printing on a ‘woven’ textured paper this is not what we are talking about.

Problem may be caused by paper-thickness setting in conjunction with the Alignment utility.

For Piezography BW, consider trying changing the resolution of the file you are printing. E.g. If your ‘Image Size’ dialog shows 300dpi, try changing it to 301.2dpi without re-sampling the image. This will change the size of the output image by a small amount, but seems to solve the problem on some occasions. Also, if you are an 1160 printer user, try the ‘Best’ printer setting and the ‘Better’ setting - you may find one prints better than the other.

Marks of a colour repeating down the page in columns: Your rollers have somehow got ink splashed on them, and your rollers are now dirty! Clean your rollers, and How do I clean the underside of the printhead?

If you are using a CIS, consider lowering the ink bottles relative to the printer, as having them to high can cause ink ‘blobbing’.

Brush down your papers before you print - paper dust can accumulate under the printhead and absorb ink, causing all manner of problems, including dropping ink onto the rollers occasionally.

Often seen on rollers near the edge of the page, as ink gets thrown off the print head as it stops and changes direction.

Posterised areas of an image: An unusual problem associated with running out of one ink very quickly, or perhaps over time without you realising! We had this happen to us with one printer where it happened between prints one after the other. The unusual thing with this is that you normally associate banding with low ink levels. What happens here is that you do not get banding because there is no ink of a particular colour printing... banding is mostly caused by some nozzles of a colour firing, some not!

To the right we show two possible results using Piezography BW: the top image showing posterised midtones, the lower image losing that detail in the highlights. Note how in each case, the rest of the tones in the image appear to be printing with full detail and control.

The fix to this problem is to replenish your inks / replace your cartridges! However, please note that if you try to print a nozzle-check, it may appear perfect! Yes, we have seen it where there is just enough ink in a print head to print a perfect nozzle check, and print absolutely nothing in a print-out immediately following!

Note 2 is that this appearance of the problem is unique to systems like Piezography that partition use of the inks. Of course, the same thing would be possible on a colour printer (running out of one colour totally) but in that case, losing a print-colour would result in a dramatic colour cast in certain colours across the whole picture - e.g. your image will look very RED in parts if you lost one of your CYAN print heads.

Ink markings on the leading or trailing edges of the sheet: Sometimes, particularly with fine-art papers, some ink markings can be seen on the leading or trailing edges of the sheet. Most often, when this happens, the corners are effected to the greatest extent.

What is happening is the paper is ‘kicking up’ at a time when it is not being held down on both sides of the printhead. As a result, any ink on the underside of the printhead can easily rub off onto the paper.

Possible methods for resolving this are:

• Do not select ‘Maximise print area’ , ‘Minimise margins’ or similar in your printer driver, to prevent printing in this ‘dangerous’ area of the paper. Alternatively, simply resize your image so it prints smaller;
• Try increasing the paper-thickness setting on the printer (may require Re-alignment utility to be run);
• Flatten the paper before printing by gently curling the paper ‘against the curl’;
• Too much ink has built up on the underside of the printhead - this can easily be thrown off the printhead or caught by the paper. The ink often appears to be black splodges, but in reality will often be a mix of one or more ink colours, giving a very dark or black appearance.
  Try our procedures to clean off the excess ink from the parking pad and possibly consider cleaning under the printhead too.

Ink Splashes on the Printout: You may occasionally see ink splashes on the printout. This is caused by one of a few possible reasons, as follows:

• If you are using a CIS, CIS Ink Bottles too full, or too high relative to the base of the printer -
  Try lowering your ink bottle relative to the base of the printer (or raise the base of the printer) - normally 1-2 centimetres will be enough;
• Too much ink has built up on the printers parking pad - this can get caught up on the base of the printhead and then gets thrown off as the printhead changes direction. The ink often appears to be black splodges, but in reality will often be a mix of one or more ink colours, giving a very dark or black appearance.
  Try our procedures in the ‘How Do I...?’ section of our Printer Support and Maintenance FAQ to clean off the excess ink from the parking pad and possibly consider cleaning under the printhead too;
• Something is blocking one or more print head nozzles - the ink is becoming trapped under the printhead, and builds up until finally it starts getting thrown off the printhead. Strangely enough, you may only see this after you have had some problems with a nozzle check, and finally when you get it fixed, you start getting ink splodges instead!
  Try our procedures to clean off the excess ink from the parking pad and possibly consider cleaning under the printhead too. In particular, this problem can be caused by fibres, hairs, paper dust etc building up. This problem is often seen in single-colour ink splodges (e.g. a problem with Yellow nozzles on a printer might be followed by yellow spatters of ink on the page (when using colour inks).

Vertical ruffling or creasing is seen in the print: This is not a very common problem, but can occasionally be seen on Epson printers using their own inks and papers, as well as when using other inks and papers. The vertical ‘ruffles’ in the print are often best seen in a side-lighting situation, do not exist on the paper before the print, and sometimes disappear after the print has had an opportunity to dry down. This appears to be an issue where the particular printer is use has output rollers that are slightly tighter to the ‘pizza wheels’ than they really ought to be. The result is that when a thin (typically matte) paper is well-inked, the output rollers can physically damage the moist paper as it leaves the printer. Verify this by looking at the print as it leaves the printer; the marking typically will line up with the rubber rollers under the printed sheet.

You may like to try a thicker or heavier paper, or even try removing the pizza wheels (thus removing what the rubber rollers are pressing against). Allowing the sheet to dry down whilst being pressed flat may help. If you are using the printer manufacturers own inks and papers, consider raising it as a warranty issue... if you are using third party inks and papers, consider reverting to OEM products to see if the problem is reproducible with those (it will not always be, it does depend on what exact ink / paper/ printing software etc you are using) and consider raising it as a warranty issue. Also consider using a media selection that will lay down less ink.

Fine dots or markings down the left or right side of a print: Departing temporarily from our normal test image, the two images shown right are real examples of this problem. Down the (typically right-hand - as you look at the print right-way-up) side of a print, about where the printhead changes direction, a fine vertical line of dots or a fine spray of a single ink colour appears. It will sometimes change its horizontal location to echo changes in the colour-balance of the picture being printed. The problem is often accompanied with very fine banding, and will probably be noticeable in an ’advanced nozzle check’ as a deflected nozzle. We have heard of this problem occur with ‘Yellow’, ‘Cyan’ and ‘Black’ inks, though it seems to be a very rare issue.

Follow normal practice to try to clean the printhead to get a perfect nozzle check. If this is unsuccessful, try using cleaning cartridges, or revert temporarily to OEM cartridges if you are using third-party inks. Whilst this problem is rare, we have heard of it happen with OEM inks!

Our analysis of this problem is that it is a mixture of some sort of obstruction of one or more printhead nozzles combined with an electronic failure that causes the nozzle to fire when the printhead changes direction. A bit like the scenario we found ‘Random lines’ above where we could create a problem with the printhead simply by making the paper feed have to work harder! By the way, you may be asking yourself how just one or two nozzles misfiring could cause such a ‘solid’ line down the page; it is because of the way that printer drivers often ‘overprint’.