Print defect & color glossary

Regular light or dark stripes across the print direction.

Symptom on the print: Visible stripes spaced to the printhead height or media-feed step.

How it is measured: Densitometer/spectro on a control fill, measuring stripe pitch and checking media feed.

Mist of fine ink droplets landing beside the intended print area.

Symptom on the print: Fuzzy edges, haze and dirt around elements, loss of edge sharpness.

How it is measured: Loupe/microscope at the edge, checking head gap, carriage speed and vacuum/static.

Droplet veering off its intended landing point on the media.

Symptom on the print: Shifted or wandering lines, ragged thin elements, localized banding.

How it is measured: Line test target, checking head gap, static charge and nozzle condition.

Grainy texture from stochastic screening or too few print passes.

Symptom on the print: Visible grain in smooth gradients and light tones, especially up close.

How it is measured: Comparing RIP quality modes against a reference gradient and pass count.

One or more nozzles not firing (clog / air / electronics).

Symptom on the print: Thin unprinted lines along the print direction, local color shift.

How it is measured: Nozzle-check test, mapping the affected row, re-check after purge.

Parasitic pattern from overlapping screens or repeating structures.

Symptom on the print: Wavy or grid-like pattern that is not in the source artwork.

How it is measured: Inspecting the source image, screen angles/frequency and RIP scaling.

Insufficient UV ink polymerization: the layer is not fully cured.

Symptom on the print: Tackiness, odor, smearing, poor adhesion and abrasion resistance.

How it is measured: Tape-test, rub/solvent test, checking lamp power and carriage speed.

Excess UV dose: over-hardened, brittle or yellowed ink layer.

Symptom on the print: Cracking on flex, yellowing, loss of adhesion on flexible media.

How it is measured: Flex/crease test, deltaE on white/light tones, UV-lamp dose check.

Ink-to-substrate bond, verified by a standard adhesive-tape test.

Symptom on the print: Ink lifts with the tape, peels on flex or under abrasion.

How it is measured: Cross-cut + tape-test (ISO 2409 / ASTM), scoring % of removed ink.

Numeric measure of color difference between reference and print.

Symptom on the print: Visible brand-color mismatch or drift between runs/machines.

How it is measured: Spectrophotometer on patches, computing dE2000/dE76 vs the target.

CMY ratio that yields neutral gray with no color cast.

Symptom on the print: Grays and neutrals shift toward a warm or cold tint.

How it is measured: Measuring a gray scale with spectro, keeping a*/b* near zero.

Per-channel ink-output calibration done before profiling.

Symptom on the print: Plugged shadows, uneven tonal ramps, unstable color.

How it is measured: Printing and measuring per-channel tone ramps, checking ink limit.

Tone value increase: a dot prints darker than specified in the file.

Symptom on the print: Midtones darken, shadows plug, midtone detail is lost.

How it is measured: Measuring a tone scale with spectro, actual vs nominal per channel.

Replacing part of CMY with black (GCR) and removing ink under black (UCR).

Symptom on the print: Unstable neutrals, excess ink, poor drying at high total area coverage.

How it is measured: Inspecting the file/profile separation, checking TAC and black amount.

Printing a top object over the one below without knockout.

Symptom on the print: Disappearing or showing-through text, unexpected color mixing.

How it is measured: Checking overprint preview in prepress and PDF separations.

Small overlap of adjacent colors that hides registration gaps.

Symptom on the print: White hairlines/gaps at color boundaries on slight misregistration.

How it is measured: Checking trap width in the file, inspecting registration under a loupe.

Deep black built from K plus CMY support instead of plain 100K.

Symptom on the print: Washed-out black (K only) or ink excess and mottling (if overdone).

How it is measured: Measuring black density with spectro, checking the rich-black TAC recipe.

Number of carriage passes used to lay down one image band.

Symptom on the print: Too few — grain and banding; too many — slow and over-wetting risk.

How it is measured: Comparing modes on a reference: grain, banding, deltaE and speed.

Droplet volume (incl. variable greyscale) driving detail and density.

Symptom on the print: Coarse highlights with large drops, density loss with too-small drops.

How it is measured: Printing highlight patches and fine text, loupe check vs the profile.

White-ink layer under/over color on clear or colored substrates.

Symptom on the print: Color show-through, uneven base, halo at the white-ink edge.

How it is measured: Checking white choke, opacity/density and layer order in the RIP.

Gradual color shift over time, between runs or between machines.

Symptom on the print: Start and end of a run differ; a reprint will not match the reference.

How it is measured: Regular deltaE control on a control strip with a measurement log.