High Speed Box Checked on 3800

[7ian7]

Does anyone have specific numbers on what type of
clarity or resolution is being comprimised (if any) when
printing on a 3800 with the "High Speed" box checked?
Is there really any difference?

To my eye, the results I'm getting outputting vector
graphics as tifs seems to be identical. Am I missing
something.

Jeff Schewe kind of nods his head like, You'd be
surprised .. when Michael Reichman says to uncheck
that box in the Luminous Landscape printing tutorial,
but doesn't go deeper in to why.

I have a hunch that over the lifetime of the printer,
it may be tougher on the machine, but that it may
actually excel from a quality perspective when it's
humming along at a faster clip.

I'll take your responses off the air.

Thanks

[Bruce Watson]

It should work just fine. I did some experimentation along with some other people years ago with x600 Epson printers. It turned out that high speed (bi-directional printing) worked perfectly well with my printer, but not so well with other printers. We worked at it pretty hard but could never figure out what the differences were. Neither could Epson. In the end we just marked it up to sample-to-sample variances with the hardware.

So it might work for you and it might not. Epson continues to get better at making printers, that is, in making the sample-to-sample variances smaller and smaller. Still, you'll have to try it and see to be sure. If it does work for you, then use it. It's actually easier on the machine -- half the passes, half the returns. And it eliminates the high speed not-printing returns. But the biggie of course is just faster printing.

[Schewe]

Does anyone have specific numbers on what type of clarity or resolution is being comprimised (if any) when printing on a 3800 with the "High Speed" box checked?

Unlike previous versions (the 76/9600 series) if you have successfully done an Auto Head Alignment for bi-directional all colors (biD all) then the output from bi-directional and uni-directional will be the same. Earlier  printers could not be aligned well enough and that required uni-directional printing (printing in only one direction) to get the maximum print quality. But with the 78/9800 and 38/4800 and above, a well aligned printer can now print bi-directionally with equal quality–which is cool because it makes the printer 2X the speed...

[7ian7]

Unlike previous versions (the 76/9600 series) if you have successfully done an Auto Head Alignment for bi-directional all colors (biD all)

Cool, thank you guys.

Any suggestion about which of the paper-setting
selections in the Head Alignment dialog to use for
printing on to Hahnemuhle Photo Rag 308 matte?

Thanks again.

[7ian7]

And one more thing, any thoughts on how often the
Auto Head Alignment should be performed?