I've just bought a Brother MFC-J6930DW, by all accounts I'm very happy with what appears to be a surprisingly capable machine.
I set it up as per the included instructions and all went smoothly. I bought this printer as jack of all trades machine, one thing I wanted is something capable of produciing decent photos... now I know this is not a dedicated photo printer but the reviews I saw said it wasn't half bad at photo printing so that seemed good enough for me.
Naturally I was keen to see what it could do so I dropped a ream of bargain basement printer paper into the top tray, downloaded a high res, colourful, detailed landscape image and set it to print. The result popped out pretty quickly and I was extremely happy with the results. Naturally, being on bog standard, non coated paper the image was a little washed out and dull as expected but still surprisingly presentable - so good so far.
Then I put in some 230gsm glossy photo print paper and was really keen to see how much better things would be. To my dismay the result was a starkly dark print, so dark that all detail was lost in shadow areas (they were just blocked out completely and looked really artificial). Areas that were full of detail on the cheap paper were just odd looking black (with a reddish tone) silhouettes!
Now before you ask, yes I did change the paper type in the print options. The Brother drivers don't give many options, the only suitable selections I have are Brother BP71 paper (which I know is their glossy variety) and "other photo paper"... both of which give the same dark dismal results. I realise that glossy paper produces deeper, more saturated colours but considering the printer did such a good job on the plain paper I assumed that it would adjust to produce a similar (luminance? brightness level?) result when glossy paper was selected? But as it stands, the difference between the two is like night and day... literally!
I have played with the various print options available to me, selecting maximum brightness together with minimum ink density, this did help but I estimate the difference that made is maybe about 20% of what I need to get the results looking half decent... surely this can't be right?
I eventually rang Brother support and to their credit did answer swiftly but the only solution they could offer was that my paper was 230gsm and the max recommended was 220gsm! I can hardly believe that a 10gsm difference would be such a big deal.
I've also tried googling the issue, all the answers state that it is not the printer but instead my monitor... which I should calibrate to match the printer. but the fact stands that the results on plain paper DO match my monitor pretty much perfectly, so why doesn't my machine alter its output to match the selected glossy paper?
Sorry for the long thread, any and all advice warmly welcomed - Mervyn.
I set it up as per the included instructions and all went smoothly. I bought this printer as jack of all trades machine, one thing I wanted is something capable of produciing decent photos... now I know this is not a dedicated photo printer but the reviews I saw said it wasn't half bad at photo printing so that seemed good enough for me.
Naturally I was keen to see what it could do so I dropped a ream of bargain basement printer paper into the top tray, downloaded a high res, colourful, detailed landscape image and set it to print. The result popped out pretty quickly and I was extremely happy with the results. Naturally, being on bog standard, non coated paper the image was a little washed out and dull as expected but still surprisingly presentable - so good so far.
Then I put in some 230gsm glossy photo print paper and was really keen to see how much better things would be. To my dismay the result was a starkly dark print, so dark that all detail was lost in shadow areas (they were just blocked out completely and looked really artificial). Areas that were full of detail on the cheap paper were just odd looking black (with a reddish tone) silhouettes!
Now before you ask, yes I did change the paper type in the print options. The Brother drivers don't give many options, the only suitable selections I have are Brother BP71 paper (which I know is their glossy variety) and "other photo paper"... both of which give the same dark dismal results. I realise that glossy paper produces deeper, more saturated colours but considering the printer did such a good job on the plain paper I assumed that it would adjust to produce a similar (luminance? brightness level?) result when glossy paper was selected? But as it stands, the difference between the two is like night and day... literally!
I have played with the various print options available to me, selecting maximum brightness together with minimum ink density, this did help but I estimate the difference that made is maybe about 20% of what I need to get the results looking half decent... surely this can't be right?
I eventually rang Brother support and to their credit did answer swiftly but the only solution they could offer was that my paper was 230gsm and the max recommended was 220gsm! I can hardly believe that a 10gsm difference would be such a big deal.
I've also tried googling the issue, all the answers state that it is not the printer but instead my monitor... which I should calibrate to match the printer. but the fact stands that the results on plain paper DO match my monitor pretty much perfectly, so why doesn't my machine alter its output to match the selected glossy paper?
Sorry for the long thread, any and all advice warmly welcomed - Mervyn.
