The probable cause of this is related to ink lay down, paper moisture and environmental working conditions

Several issues maybe be happening to not allow the ink to thoroughly dry before transfer.

  • Make sure your drying system is working correctly. Sometimes, it may be necessary to add another heat source depending on your operating environment
  • A warn transfer calendar can cause drying issues
  • Too much humidity in your operating environment may cause the ink and paper to be too moist, causing multiple issues
  • You may be laying down too much ink. Specifically, Jetcol papers require substantially less ink lay down to perform the same as other papers. Adjusting the ink level under a “total” ink option in your RIP may not be enough
  • This mechanism leaves us with a print side that is moist with a printed image, and a paper support that carries the rest of the moisture extracted from the ink
  • Usually the printed paper is heated by the drying capacity installed on the printer
  • This causes a major part of the moisture to evaporate from the printed surface

With the above in mind, the things you can do to prevent or resolve this issue are:

  1. Apply as little ink as possible onto the paper. This also makes sense looking at costs, so creating a suitable profile will be profitable in more than one way
  2. Try adjusting your individual CMYK ink levels as opposed to just using the “total” ink option on your RIP
  3. Replace your transfer calendar