Epson 1280 printer question (1 Viewer)

[Nelson Au]

Hey guys, this is a first for me, I'm usually in the Software or movies section. I hope my question is in the right place

I just bought a new Epson Stylus Photo 1280 printer. Becauseof my design work, we use the previous model at work, the 1270. The color prints are incredible for photos and illustrations we do.

I've only used my printer a few times as I am preparing my documents before I print the whole thing out. The problem I hope some of you might be able to help me with is the quality of the fonts printed. A co-worker suggested that I use the head alignment function as the text has some banding. The photos look fine though. As far as I can tell, OS and software and fonts are identical on the home machine to the work machine. Macintosh G4 OS 9.04 at work and Blue and White G3 with OS 9.04 at home and same versions of Photoshop and Illustrator. Is it normal for a new printer, right out of the box to need alignment?

Thanks!

Nelson

 

[Graeme Clark]

You should run alignment right out of the box. It's sort of like calibrating your TV. The photos probably are somewhat out but it is not as easy to tell.

Maybe try printing out some circles from Illustrator (filled and unfilled) to see how the line up.

Also try running in different qualities to see if that helps at all (of course the higher qualities will use more of the expensive ink).

 

[Nelson Au]

Graeme-

Thanks for the reply. But I found the problem. It wasn't a problem at all, it was my stupidity! I don't know why, but in Illustrator, not Microsoft Word, the lower resolution settings, 320 and 720 the text looks fine. But in Illustrator, it looked terrible at 720. Which was the default resolution for the photopaper I was using. I didn't realize our work machine had the set up for 1440dpi prints. That was the trick, it looks fabulous now!

Live and learn!

Nelson