Banding occurs when printing from Illustratror/InDesign on HP Designjet Z5200 PostScript Printer

Question

Recently we got the below printer for large-format prints such as posters, banners and the like.
http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF05a/18972-18972-3328061-12600-3328080-4122732.ht ml
However so far when printing directly from InDesign and Illustrator there have been problems with "banding" (alternating stripes of darker and brighter colors on the paper when printing).
It seems that this could have something to do with either the type of paper and/or the OS (we use both XP and Win7) on which CS5 runs but I am still unsure if these are the real causes.
After having talked to a certified HP-technician (not only a support employee!) the technician pointed towards the CS5 package as the culprit.
At the very moment we are using a workaround that the before mentioned technician advised us to use which is basically the following.
Illustrator --> Saving the Ilustrator file, then opening it in Photoshop and saving as a tiff raster image in the relevant resolution, then importing the tiff raster image into HP's HP own "Instant Printing Pro" printing application.
InDesign --> Saving the InDesign file as a pdf, then opening the pdf in Photoshop and saving as a tiff raster image in  the relevant resolution, then importing the tiff raster image into HP's  HP own "Instant Printing Pro" printing application.
These two solutions both work without banding on the final print.
However, sometimes - as mentioned before - it seems that the paper might absorb the ink better if it's of a better/thicker quality when banding doesn't seem to occur (at the moment we mostly use plain paper settings in the local printer settings display when loading a roll of paper which also is a cheaper type of paper) and while banding seems to occur mostly when printing from XP machines it doesn't always seem to occur when doing so from Win7 machines.
What's the score on the above?
Any help and input is welcome and appreciated!

Answer 1

Well, I have no official
connection to Adobe, but any manufacturer who sells a product targeted
at the graphic arts industry, and then says that the reason it doesn't
work is because there's a problem with the software produced by the
graphics industry leader needs a reality check. Printer manuafacturers
have had access to Adobe for years, so there's really no excuse for an
incompatibility problem.
Your company is a vendor? Get
escalated. HP should be all over getting this to work correctly,
including providing a RIP for you if that's what it's going to take to
implement proper printing. How do the expect you to demonstrate or
recommend this printer if it stripes the background?
Peter -->
You are right about basically anything that you said and I agree that this should be HP's headache. But it's not so simple at the moment.
First of all I'd hate to stand back like a dummy if it would turn out to be a minor driver setting issue or another insignificant problem that creates the banding. On the other hand it would of course also be the local HP-support failing since they didn't manage to tell us about it in the first place and that's really their job and responsibility but under any circumstance, I'd like to give the ideas and suggestions from the other participants further up this thread a chance and see if the pdf-printing or other ideas work. In other words..., if I'd complain to HP it had to be bulletproof.
Secondly we are supposed to sell these and similar products to our clients and if I should start a dicussion I'd have to argue not only with HP who would most likely claim that the workaround they told us works (in a way) and that this was a result - at least to them - as well. I might also have to start discussing with the CEO of our company, the purchasing department and the marketing director (the latter actually said some time ago when we had the first problems that if the printer didn't work according to the HP-consultant's promises they could have it back, so there is at least some hope there). At the moment I am too busy at work and too low paid to be getting into this. And I seriously doubt that HP would give us a RIP to be testing this off even though we'd argue that the clients won't be able to work this out if we don't do. They'd probably just say that it's mainly for plotting charts and architects or stuff or find a whole range of other excuses. It's not certain and there could be positive surprises but I'd say that that's not likely.
There is one other thing Peter that I am still wondering about...
If you take a look again at the fourth and last picture-link I posted you can see the exact same print as in link no. 3 but whereas the third link shows banding the last - the fourth image link - shows no banding at all. Now I am not a 100% sure anymore if these were both printed directly from Illustrator but to my best knowledge they were since I printed all of these banners the same day and I don't recall saving to tiff or using other programs. I might be wrong but if that's the case then the thick HP-paper doesn't band whereas the thin does. That's the reason why I stated previously that the banding might occur with thinner paper (or wrong paper load settings) and doesn't occur with thicker paper at all. As mentioned I don't recall this action a 100% but am pretty sure. Also therefore I would like to run another test when I get more time and won't be so busy at work as I am right now.
Do you think there could be a difference there...?
macinbytes wrote:
I'm guessing they have the same crappy Colorburst software that shipped with the HP we got and it's never going to get good with InDesign or Illustrator transparency. We have the thermal printer that is 6x more expensive and the software is still bad. At version 9.3 it still fails on InDesign transparency.
We just make tiffs or normalized PDFs for files containing InDesign transparency. Illustrator transparency generally works better than InDesign, but isn't infallible. Anything that uses the gradient feather tool in InDesign I don't even bother with a test print to see if it gets it because I know it will fail 100% of the time.
If they are a vendor they are in a Catch 22 if they do it right and go for a solution that normalizes the files properly before sending to the garbage software that ships with it. When you are talking about an entry level thermal inkjet the software package isn't going to be robust. Something like a GMG or other solution to handle all the show devices files works, but at best you are disingenuous about how files are being handled with your clients and face pushback when they can't run all the cool tricks to them when they get it out in the field.
Happens with Colorburst, happens with Colorgate, happens to a lesser degree even with the lower end Creo RIP. Fiery seems to get it good somehow, but doesn't power a ton of inkjets.
HP support is phonetag hell anyway for inkjets. They buy out tons of companies that produce anything printing like ColorSpan and provide bare minimum support on the products they slap an HP tag on. They want to sell inks and papers. They don't make the software and license it in bulk like the crap they load on their computers. They also usually ship with old software that needs at least a couple point releases before it is current, but even the current software on their thermal printers sucks at InDesign transparency. HP may need a reality check on their software, but I doubt they get it. They've got a sufficient stranglehold and supporting what is essentially a bottom of the barrel portion of their printing business is in the high maintenance low yield square for them.
macinbytes -->
Wow, now THAT is scary reading...!
If what you wrote is true then things really start looking bleak. But I can recognize some of the problems that you are mentioning although I am not into all of the details that you are writing about in your thread. But it sure looks like they just mass produce and try to keep support to a bare minimum whereas they are scoring big bucks on the media, inks and other accessories and then hope that complaints will die and people will just give up in the end.
It does make sense also seen in light of the fact that our local HP-consultant who "introduced" us to the printer praised it to the sky with a lot of "sales mambo jambo", trying it out in HP's own "E-share & Print" (which I was told by the HP-technician was the wrong HP-print program, instead he made me download and install the "Instant Printing Pro") whereas he NEVER even tried it off in any of the Adobe programs or asked some of our employees to do so.
If you are getting more info in regards to the development in these cases or solutions software-like speaking I'd love to hear from you.
Thanks for your time and for posting.