Dotty prints

Hi all,

I'm having an issue where light colours are printing with dots all over them. If there are lots of colours in a design, the darker and brighter colours are fine but the light ones are dotty. It's like a noisy photo except they are 300 dpi graphics?!

When I print them myself you can see it but it's not that bad. However, if I send it to a printer to do for me, they're coming out a lot worse. Obviously we will have different equipment but I'm not sure if there's anything I can do my end up ensure the dots go away completely?

I'm using a ricoh SG 3110 printer with sawgrass inks. Print from photoshop using sRGB profile and Powerdriver. Using Listawood duraglaze mugs.

Does anyone have any insight? Could it be to do with if it's 8 bit or 16?! I really have no idea. The rest of the image is clear e.g. if there's text with it, that is always clear.

Thanks in advance!

do you see the dots on the paper before heat pressing?
if not, could be a flaw in the coating?

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Originally Posted by logobear

do you see the dots on the paper before heat pressing?
if not, could be a flaw in the coating?

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Yeah I can see them on the print. You have to look quite closely when I do it.
But when I get a mug from somewhere else printed for me it's really obviously dotty just on the light colours so don't think it's that :(

Thank you! :)

Have you looked at the design artwork to see if there's an issue with it, possibly not a solid spot colour? If the digital image has the colour made up of spotted colour this would be produced by the printer and then transferred to the mug.

The only other thing that jumps to mind would be the paper, check you're printing on the correct side (printing on the wrong side means the paper surface is very fibrous and this can make solid colours look spotted and fuzzy)

Alex

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Originally Posted by InkExpress

Have you looked at the design artwork to see if there's an issue with it, possibly not a solid spot colour? If the digital image has the colour made up of spotted colour this would be produced by the printer and then transferred to the mug.

The only other thing that jumps to mind would be the paper, check you're printing on the correct side (printing on the wrong side means the paper surface is very fibrous and this can make solid colours look spotted and fuzzy)

Alex

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Hi Alex,
I'm definitely printing on the right side of the paper and what I'm producing is better than print on demand companies! haha And the rest of the print is fine, just the light colours. I know what you mean about the wrong side though.

When you say not a solid spot colour do you mean that it wouldn't look solid on the screen or is there a deeper level to the colour I might not know about? I filled it in illustrator with one colour and made it into a png. Then put the png into photoshop and printed. It's happening on a lot of light colours so I don't think it's an issue with specific artwork but some kind of over arching misunderstanding about colour?

Maybe something happens to light RGB colours when they go to CYMK?

Thanks! :)

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Originally Posted by Ljb596

Hi Alex,
I'm definitely printing on the right side of the paper and what I'm producing is better than print on demand companies! haha And the rest of the print is fine, just the light colours. I know what you mean about the wrong side though.

When you say not a solid spot colour do you mean that it wouldn't look solid on the screen or is there a deeper level to the colour I might not know about? I filled it in illustrator with one colour and made it into a png. Then put the png into photoshop and printed. It's happening on a lot of light colours so I don't think it's an issue with specific artwork but some kind of over arching misunderstanding about colour?

Maybe something happens to light RGB colours when they go to CYMK?

Thanks! :)

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No worries just thought I'd check as it is quite easily done.

If the colour is solid on screen and has be filled in with one solid colour then the artwork is fine. Why don't you try printing directly from Illustrator rather than exporting to Photoshop. I do not know of any issues with converting RGB to CMYK but the change in image mode / change in file type and software may be having an effect on the image.

If you open the original file that was made in Illustrator and printer from Illustrator see if the same thing happens

Alex

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Originally Posted by InkExpress

No worries just thought I'd check as it is quite easily done.

If the colour is solid on screen and has be filled in with one solid colour then the artwork is fine. Why don't you try printing directly from Illustrator rather than exporting to Photoshop. I do not know of any issues with converting RGB to CMYK but the change in image mode / change in file type and software may be having an effect on the image.

If you open the original file that was made in Illustrator and printer from Illustrator see if the same thing happens

Alex

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Just tried printing from Illustrator and it's the same. To be fair it isn't bad and when it's pressed it's acceptable and I would send it out.
But when I send the same file to a print on demand company, it's much worse and I wouldn't want it to go out to my customers.

The colour from print on demand companies is also lighter. It happens on pale colours that come out even paler with a few print on demand companies I've tried. Do you think you can just go too pale?!

Thanks

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ljb596

Just tried printing from Illustrator and it's the same. To be fair it isn't bad and when it's pressed it's acceptable and I would send it out.
But when I send the same file to a print on demand company, it's much worse and I wouldn't want it to go out to my customers.

The colour from print on demand companies is also lighter. It happens on pale colours that come out even paler with a few print on demand companies I've tried. Do you think you can just go too pale?!

Thanks

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I thought I'd just add 2 photos:

https://www.dyesubforum.co.uk/vbforu...tid=5315&stc=1https://www.dyesubforum.co.uk/vbforu...tid=5316&stc=1

Top- dotty, printed by a print on demand company
Bottom- fine, printed by me

Both the same file.
I'm so confused!! :(

Thanks

Maybe the POD mug has a poorer coating.

I would blame budget paper and maybe the ink. It's bad quality printing, who is the POD company?

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Originally Posted by webtrekker

Maybe the POD mug has a poorer coating.

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One of them isn't branded on the bottom so could be anything but one is Orca and I've not had issues with them before..

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Originally Posted by GoonerGary

I would blame budget paper and maybe the ink. It's bad quality printing, who is the POD company?

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Do you think the paper would affect certain colours more than others? Because the black is fine.
It's teelaunch - their UK fulfilment centre. I've also had one from their US centre which isn't as bad but worse than what I can produce myself.

I guess that makes sense though. The mugs are cheap. It's also happened on another company I've used where the mugs are very cheap.

I was hoping it was something I could fix on my file :(

Thank you :)

The POD company are obviously using a poor quality ink, paper or mug, or possibly all three. That image of the heart you posted is terrible and they should not be sending that out on your behalf. I would look at using another POD company to see if things improve, or produce yourself and you control the quality.

Alex

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Originally Posted by InkExpress

The POD company are obviously using a poor quality ink, paper or mug, or possibly all three. That image of the heart you posted is terrible and they should not be sending that out on your behalf. I would look at using another POD company to see if things improve, or produce yourself and you control the quality.

Alex

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I spoke with a company that did a dotty print for me and they had some interesting insights!!
They seem to think it's the speed that they print and they think the dots are artifacts from darker things they have printed previously - seems like seconds before.
They said they could slow the printing a bit which should improve it but I can't trust that they would do that.

Interesting though!
I've had experiences before where I print off 2 identical templates 2 or 3 mugs apart and the colours are very different. It must be that what you print before something influences the colours you get. At a glance you wouldn't notice but if you were sending 2 mugs to the same person but you didn't print them straight after each other they would look different.

Yeah I currently make them myself but I want to outsource. But to a company that makes them as close to what I make as possible! Which is proving hard! :)

Thanks everyone for all your help!

I had the same problem with Sawgrass SG 400 which is basically the same printer. Sawgrass sent me 2 replacements and still the same problem. The problem is called "dithering" and they recognized it's a flaw in the firmware. I seem to have understood there are just faulty batches. I got a refund and switched to Epson 1500W. Since then never looked back and sticked with fine art/photo Epsons.

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Originally Posted by malkram

I had the same problem with Sawgrass SG 400 which is basically the same printer. Sawgrass sent me 2 replacements and still the same problem. The problem is called "dithering" and they recognized it's a flaw in the firmware. I seem to have understood there are just faulty batches. I got a refund and switched to Epson 1500W. Since then never looked back and sticked with fine art/photo Epsons.

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Ooh, that's interesting! I've just had a little google. So basically it's dithering when it shouldn't be because it's just a flat colour. Can you tell it not to dither in photoshop? I'm sure I've seen dithering settings in Photoshop before.. But can't see anything right now when I just looked.

Thanks for your help!

The dithering settings are in the printer driver --> Print Quality tab. My Ricoh SG3110DN is set to 'Use error diffusion: auto(image).'

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Originally Posted by webtrekker

The dithering settings are in the printer driver --> Print Quality tab. My Ricoh SG3110DN is set to 'Use error diffusion: auto(image).'

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Thank you!

I dont think photoshop settings will change anything if the printer is defective. I remember that I had dots even when printing a colour palette directly through the printer menu (with the buttons)

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Originally Posted by malkram

I dont think photoshop settings will change anything if the printer is defective. I remember that I had dots even when printing a colour palette directly through the printer menu (with the buttons)

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Yeah that makes sense. Thanks for your help!

To conclude, go with Epson. Cheaper ink and better quality.