Highlights in dark area printing "Blocky & Tiled" from jpg

[lodcomm]

Hello Folks,

I am getting "blocky" / "Tiled" looking areas in a banner printout. The effect appears to be a function of the way the rip is rendering the jpg. I cropped out the section and tried just sending that to the printer and got the exact same blocky print output in the higlights on the dark area of the images shirt. I loaded the jpg directly into the production manager, did no resizing and was printing with the following settings.

Flexi-8 Production Manager
Media: SOL Heavy Duty Banner
Print Mode: Normal 360 dpi
Dither: FMXPress
Output profile is for my Nazdar 2000 Inks that I use routinely.
Input ICC - Adobe RGB
Rendering Intent: Absolute Colormetric



I have tried different dither settings, and printing the problem area under Fine2 (540 dpi) , settings.. in all cases these areas appear blocky.

Can anyone offer any suggestions on how to identify something like this before seeing it mid-print ?


Original jpg cust sent at approx 2' x 3':





Image of printed banner:


Close up of Blocky light areas:



Cropped out area Printed, showing exact same tiling:







Thanks again!

-todd

 

[sfr table hockey]

I always tend to use perceptual for any bitmap or photo stuff. Relative for all others.

Also rendering intents for the other settings will tend to shift the colors to either the max or alter them enough so that photos will not look normal.

Some times with all the effects in a file and saved as a jpeg, it can loose a lot of the file information and should be saved as a tiff or pdf if possible. Can they get you the file in another saved version and don't let them open that jpeg file and just resave it as another. They would need the original files setup before it was saved as a jpeg. Of course if thats the case they should send you that file and let you work with it.

Also printing at normal will not be as good as fine2 but those areas you have as blotches, I think are related to them saving the file as a jpeg and all the effects. If you zoom into that file in photoshop, can you see any blotches in those areas?

Also for a jpeg to be sent at 2' x 3' I wonder what the dpi was. If it's lower than 100 or min 72 dpi then the file is already going to be pixelated.

 

[Asuma01]

This might be a silly question but have you tried saving the file as a TIF? Also you could try touching up the weird spots in photoshop. Maybe just shift the color in the trouble areas ever so slightly. Ive had my rip freak out on certain colors before and making a slight color adjustment fixed it.

 

[bob]

First, your rendering intent of Absolute Colormetric is why the printed banner looks awful. The pathetic quality of the print probably has nothing to do the dropped out areas. Since the anomaly would appear to be reproducible, it's an odds on bet that there exists some sort of irregularity in the file itself.

Jpg's, like virtually every other bitmap package, are encoded, not a pixel by pixel representation. The image must be reconstructed from the encoded data. What's in the file are the instructions necessary to create the image, not the image itself. There's something about the data in this particular file with which your RIP cannot properly deal. Try another file. You possibly could confirm this be opening the file in Corel or Adobe or whatever and re-saving it. If the new file works, it would certainly confirm this but if the same anomaly appears it doesn't necessarily mean that the hypothesis is wrong.

 

[lodcomm]

First, your rendering intent of Absolute Colormetric is why the printed banner looks awful. The pathetic quality of the print probably has nothing to do the dropped out areas. Since the anomaly would appear to be reproducible, it's an odds on bet that there exists some sort of irregularity in the file itself.

here's something about the data in this particular file with which your RIP cannot properly deal. Try another file. You possibly could confirm this be opening the file in Corel or Adobe or whatever and re-saving it. If the new file works, it would certainly confirm this but if the same anomaly appears it doesn't necessarily mean that the hypothesis is wrong.

Thanks everyone for the suggestions - I had my friend re-send the file at 150 dpi. I will work with the new file and report back.

And Should I be using "perceptual" as my rendering intent for photos/images? I don't want Awful looking printouts. Is there a resource outlining the proper selection & use of the rendering intents I can review to better understand them?

thanks again to all.

-t

 

[lodcomm]

Follow up

Hello Folks,

I loaded the 150 DPI Version into the production manager - cropped out the area i was having problems with and sent to the printer, this copy still had a small bit of tiling, but it was nothing like it was in the low-res version:



I proceeded by loading the image into photoshop, and used the blur tool over the problem pixelated areas on the birthday gents shirt. Exported the file back out as a tiff, and resent to the printer.. The banner is now printing properly sans the pixelation:



(note: The banner coloring looks much better in real life than in the iphone photo above!)

Thanks a ton to everyone for all the help and advice.

-todd

 

[sfr table hockey]

To try to give a brief idea of what the rendering intent does, for perceptual, if there is a color in your file that you printer can not print, perceptual will back off that color until it will print on your printer. At the same time it will back all the other colors the same amount so that overall your picture will still look similar and you won't see a major change. When you use an absolute intent then that will force all the colors to the max that your printer can print. One color might be up a bit while another might be way higher so then your picture would look different with all the color to the max but not equal amounts.

Always use Perceptual for photos or bitmaps. Relative for all others.

Bob may be better to describe this but I think that is close to how it works. Search rendering intents on google and see what you find.

 

[thewrightjenn]

I have had the same problem before. What program are you printing out of? What type of file are you sending to the printer? A pdf?

 

[lodcomm]

I have had the same problem before. What program are you printing out of? What type of file are you sending to the printer? A pdf?

I believe the original jpg was created using xara. the rip & print software I was using to print it was Flexi-8 Production Manager.

I originally sent it as a straight jpg, as that is what the customer sent me. The final printed version was a .tif that I exported from photoshop after altering the jpg in the tiled areas using the blur tool.

-t

 

[lodcomm]

To try to give a brief idea of what the rendering intent does, for perceptual, if there is a color in your file that you printer can not print, perceptual will back off that color until it will print on your printer. At the same time it will back all the other colors the same amount so that overall your picture will still look similar and you won't see a major change. When you use an absolute intent then that will force all the colors to the max that your printer can print. One color might be up a bit while another might be way higher so then your picture would look different with all the color to the max but not equal amounts.

Always use Perceptual for photos or bitmaps. Relative for all others.

Bob may be better to describe this but I think that is close to how it works. Search rendering intents on google and see what you find.

Thanks for tutorial,

I did a google search on the subject and found a few sites that explained the best intents to use for the various print formats. I have a fair grasp of the whole thing now.

-t