Global Graphics Software’s Technical Services team worked with Ellerhold’s process engineer, Patrick Prezewowsky, to enhance the quality of the printed output using its award-winning technology, ScreenPro. A very fast and efficient multi-level screening engine that mitigates artifacts such as streaking and mottling from the inkjet print process, ScreenPro can be used in any print workflow, including Adobe®, Caldera, Esko, EFI and Sofha, with any combination of inks, substrates, printheads and electronics.

The team used ScreenPro’s PrintFlat technology to smooth out the banding present on Ellerhold’s large-format posters. PrintFlat corrects for density non-uniformity, which results in banding commonly caused by variation within a printhead or between printheads and is very time consuming to correct in hardware.

In ScreenPro every nozzle can be addressed separately on any head/electronics to achieve very fine granularity. PrintFlat adjusts the density within ScreenPro to produce uniform density across a print bar. The process can be automated for closed-loop correction and, unlike correction by adjustment of voltages, there is no effect on jetting stability or head lifetime, nor ink pressure and timing/drop speed variation.

The Technical Services team carried out tests, analysed the scanned prints and created a PrintFlat calibration workflow for the MLM_2600_NG designed to compensate for the non-uniformity in output across the print bar (poster width).

The team also used a variant of Global Graphics Software’s Advanced Inkjet Screens™ (AIS), available with ScreenPro and the Harlequin RIP®, which they adapted specially for scanning-head systems. These proved very effective.

Before

With PrintFlat