Best Practices for Daily Operation of Your Copier or Digital Printer

 

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” – Arthur C. Clark

Consider for a moment the marvel that is color printing.

It uses a scientific trick of light waves - Metamerism - plus engineering marvels that electrostatically charge a piece of media in very specific places, then release precisely placed, incredibly small grains of colored toner, and a developer fluid that reacts with the fuser's heat to bond those particles, all to trick your eye into thinking that a reflective surface is an emitting surface.

Hundreds of times a minute.

This is a trick worthy of magic, but really, it's science.

The seemingly miraculous recreation of both scanned documents and printed files is commonly accepted, and not given much thought, until that dreaded moment when you have ten minutes until an important presentation and the digital printer refuses to cooperate.

While this may make your stress levels rise, many issues can be resolved immediately, by the operator, with little or no formal training.

 There are three major areas of grief that can easily be remedied without calling in a service professional.

• Poor print or copy quality
• Paper jams
• Full waste toner reservoirs

Print or Copy Quality Can Easily be Adjusted

If the output is of poor quality when copying, but not printing from a file, one of the obvious places to check and correct copy quality is the scanner glass. Cleaning is very important, however, harsh cleaners that contain ammonia or abrasives will leave you worse off than before. One of the best cleaners is a half and half solution of vinegar and water.

Don’t overlook cleaning the slit glass on your copier, which can be the source of your poor print quality. When the slit glass is dirty, black lines could appear on your copies and scans. The slit glass is a narrow strip of glass usually located to the left of the large glass plate.

 NEVER run multi scans of pages with Post-It notes stuck to them. Not only can they gum up the page feed mechanism of the scanner, they leave behind residue on the glass that picks up dust and dirt to ruin your prints.

Adjusting the contrast on the print run can significantly alter the appearance of the prints. Reducing the contrast can help lessen the appearance of specks or streaks. Folds and creases on paper can become lines on copies if the contrast setting is too high.

Many of the latest generation copiers have adjustment settings that can dramatically improve print quality. The background removal feature does not eliminate spots and specks completely, but it does fade them significantly.

The transfer drum, fuser, or corona wire might cause print quality issues. If the drum, fuser roller, or corona wire is damaged, they can cause dots, lines, or other repetitive marks to appear on your prints. These are all delicate parts of a copier and require expertise to clean or fix. If these cleaning tips didn’t get rid of those marks, then a service call is in order.

Many Paper Jam Issues Can Be Avoided with Proper Paper Storage.

Humidity is the enemy of printing paper. Proper storage is critical.

Even without the issue of jams, a short list of print issues related to paper include:

• Curling
• Waving
• Wrinkles
• Creasing
• Hollow images
• Background scatter
• Toner smear
• Background shading
• Dropouts
• Fading

When loading paper, keep in mind the paper grain (direction of the fibers) especially on heavier weight paper. Cross grain paper can crease when following a curved paper path, causing jams.

Always riffle through a ream of paper before inserting it into a paper feed tray. This introduces air between the sheets and helps ensure proper selection of a single sheet at a time.

Double check the proper paper size, weight, & orientation are selected in the print properties dialog box before releasing a print job.

Opening the doors of a digital copier, you will usually find a map with clearance points for the paper. Almost every clearance point has a roller next to it. ALWAYS use the roller first, before attempting to clear the paper. This will feed the paper straight through the path as far as possible, helping to avoid tearing or chipping.

Ghost jams occur when your printer is telling you that you have a jam, even after you have cleared out all of the existing paper stuck in the machine. While tiny, torn bits of paper can sometimes be blocking a sensor, more often than not, this occurs because you did not clear jams in the correct order.

Always clear paper jams in the same order as the paper path, starting at the paper feed tray and ending at the output tray. Some sensors at the end of the path require a “green light” from sensors in the beginning of the path before they can register green themselves.

Toner Cartridges Are Great, But Not Perfect

Toner is a very fine grained, plastic based powder that, when heated and mixed with developer fluid, melts, and then bonds to the tooth of the paper’s surface.

Toner cartridges come in a wide variety of sizes and shapes, and each one is specific to the make and model of digital copier they are manufactured for. Never try to use a toner cartridge for a different machine.

Cartridges have a limited shelf life. If not used in a timely manner, gravity can cause the toner to settle and clump at the bottom. Cartridges should ALWAYS be stored horizontally, and then shaken vigorously before inserting them into the machine.

The interior of the machines needs to be environmentally clean. Since toner is electrostatically charged by positive ions to precisely determine where it sticks to the paper, any stray toner particles inside the mechanism will also get charged, and then stick to – and fuse onto – the interior of the device. This can build up and seriously damage the copier.

Not all of the toner in the cartridge gets used. The waste toner is collected in a separate, replaceable container. The “waste toner full” sensor may go off and stop the printer from functioning, but simply shaking the container to settle the waste toner is often enough to get the printer running again to finish your job. It is recommended that you keep three of these containers on hand, when one is replaced, re-order, that way you have one on the shelf, one in the device, and one on the way.

A gentle, patient approach is best when swapping out toner cartridges. Many of the parts, most particularly the sensors, are delicate, and can be easily damaged. 

Some basic quality troubleshooting tips

• If a vertical white streak or faded area appears on the page, the toner supply is low. Install a new toner cartridge.
• If the entire page is light, the print resolution setting is too low, or the toner save mode is on. 
• If the top half of the paper is printed lighter than the rest of the paper, the toner might not adhere properly to this type of paper.
• Toner specks mean the paper may not meet specifications, the paper may be too moist or rough, or the transfer roller may be dirty.
• If faded areas, generally rounded, (known as dropouts) occur randomly on the page, it is usually a paper issue, either moisture, or surface smoothness.
• If the amount of background shading becomes unacceptable, check the environmental conditions: very dry conditions or a high level of humidity (higher than 80% RH) can increase the amount of background shading.
• If marks repeatedly appear on the printed side of the page at even intervals, the toner cartridge may be damaged or parts of the machine may have toner on them. If the defects occur on the back of the page, the problem will likely correct itself after a few more pages.
• If black vertical streaks appear on the page, the surface (drum part) of the cartridge inside the machine has probably been scratched.
• Background scatter results from bits of toner randomly distributed on the printed page means the paper is likely too damp.
• Pages that are skewed, curved, or wavy are all examples of paper improperly seated in the feed drawers.

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Christopher Reilley is a print technology expert, QA testware designer, copywriter, former poet laureate, certified G7, and the creative director for The Bytesized Studio. 

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www.thebytesizedstudio.com

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Tips for Great Color Printing

Good color starts by calibrating all of the devices within the color work flow.

Devices should be calibrated often to ensure that they have not “drifted.” The frequency depends upon your reliance on color. As you know from reading this blog, calibrating brings the device to a known, stable state, and is a baseline.

Calibrating your monitor is just as important as calibrating the print device.

Whatever color space you might be working in, unless your monitor presents you with controlled, managed color, what you see will not match what you get. First, it’s important to think about the problem correctly. The goal isn’t to match the prints to the monitor or the converse. 

The goal is to make sure both the monitor and the prints reflect, as accurately as possible, the information that is actually in the digital file. There are lots of methods for calibrating your monitor, and it can get quite involved.

Here is a video showing how YOU can calibrate your monitor for FREE.

The major manufacturers of monitor calibration packages for the casual user are Datacolor (the Spyder series ), X-Rite (the i1 series, PANTONE Huey and the ColorMunki) and Integrated Color (ColorEyes Display Pro). All these products are of excellent quality. The first two have several price levels of packages with varying capabilities.

The more expensive packages may include features you don’t need, such as printer profiling and projector calibration, and the ability to customize calibration settings beyond the defaults. 

The accepted standard is to calibrate to a color temperature of 6500K, a gamma of 2.2 (for both PC and Mac platforms) and a luminance of 90 cd/m2 and these will be the default setting in all the packages. But some of the less expensive packages may not do everything you need, such as luminance adjustment. Check the details.

Some laptop screens may not be able to be calibrated properly, and older or very inexpensive computers may not be able to use a profile. Apple laptops will need the ColorEyes software mentioned above.

An issue with Windows is a utility called Adobe Gamma. If it is in your Startup file it will be loaded on startup and override your calibration settings. Simply go to Start > Programs > Startup, right click the Adobe Gamma Loader and click Delete. (If it’s not there, don’t be concerned.) Don’t be nervous about doing this. It only turns it off as a startup item; it does nothing to what is installed your computer.

A custom ICC profile should be created for each device within the Color Supply Chain.

This process ensures accurate and automatic translation of color values from one device to another, minimizing time and waste during the production process. A Device Link Profile can be established to link devices commonly used in the production process, eliminating the need to specify individual device profiles each time.

Paper, inks and toner impact the ultimate color result. 

Creating individual device profiles for each paper type, ink and/or toner used delivers a more consistent result. For example, if a proof is being generated on a glossy, coated stock, but the final product is being produced on a matte uncoated stock, these custom profiles can produce a more consistent result.

Spot colors can add time and cost to a printed project. 

Not all spot colors can be faithfully reproduced with CMYK four-color process. Designers and printers should carefully consider the colors that they are using within the context of the project’s budget and desired outcomes. Many tools exist that can help users determine whether or not a special color can be faithfully reproduced using a CMYK match. It is often necessary to use spot colors to consistently match special corporate colors and to ensure absolute color consistency across a distributed printing process.

Make sure you aren't "duplicating" any colors. 

Look through the color palette in your page layout software. Remove any duplicate colors you find, and reassign the corresponding objects and layers accordingly.

Make sure you give your colors the same names in each application you use for the project. 

For example, make sure you give the color the same name in InDesign as you give it in Photoshop and Illustrator. This will help reduce confusion and ensure the colors separate properly when preparing the piece for print.

Communication among all constituents in the color work flow is essential. 

This communication should include sharing of ICC profiles, discussion about paper and ink types and proofing models, and more. In doing so, good, consistent color can be produced across widely varying geographies and output technology types.

Using a good RIP in the production process is a critical element in the color work flow. 

It alleviates many color issues and reduces training challenges. Consistency in settings within the RIP is key to delivering repeatable and known color.

When using digital cameras or scanners for input, if you want your colors to be consistent from shot to shot, or scan to scan, include a color target in the first frame/scan of a sequence. 

When it comes to processing, set the grey point (and black and white points) using the target reference frame, and your software will match the subsequent batch of images.

Always color correct images in the largest RGB color space available. 

When images are converted from RGB to CMYK, you lose color information—a lot of it. As a result, you (and your color management tools) have fewer colors to work with, or average, when attempting to make color changes to an image. Also, when images are converted from RGB to CMYK, you’re creating the black separation and reducing the amount of CMY in the image at the same time. Depending upon how much CMY is eliminated in the separation, it can be very difficult—or even impossible—to make color adjustments to an image.

When designing for color output, avoid large solids.

While lithographic presses have the ability to reproduce solids evenly, toner-based devices have a tendency to mottle, show unevenness, or even banding. This is because ink and toner are radically different materials. When toner is applied to paper, it is dry. Toner is not actually absorbed into the paper fibers, instead, it is fused to the sheet using both heat and fuser oil, creating a bond. Consistency lies in how evenly the toner was applied to the paper, and how evenly it was fused to the paper.

If tints and large solids must be used in a design, there are some ways to help counteract the uneven appearance associated with toner-based devices. First, try applying a filter (Photoshop Add Noise or Texture filters work well) to the large tint or solids. Another option is to also break up large color areas with other design elements such as text, images, or illustrations.