Banding on parts of my photo prints

[PenguinLust]

I have an MG6120 and when I print some photos on 8.5x11 "everyday gloss" photo paper from the Gimp in Windows 10 using the "high" quality setting (as opposed to "standard" or "fast"), using the rear paper tray, I get banding on parts and always the same parts.
I've tried aligning the print head, 2 or 3 cycles of cleaning and 1 cycle of deep cleaning, as well as cleaning the roller. It hasn't made a difference.
I use refill inks, whose expiry is "11/1/2021", but I don't know if that's a US date or international.
I do very little printing. In fact, I often have to do a weekly nozzle check print, just to keep the head supple (and there's no indication of clogging when I do that).
One more thing: the printer's 10 years old.

I've included sample of the original picture I'm printing, as well as a scan of the printed version. Yes, my scanner sucks too, but it still makes the problem pretty obvious.

 

[PeterBJ]

I think the dotted vertical lines are spur wheel marks or "Pizza cutter wheel" marks. These are not caused by a defective print head but are caused by unsuitable paper and/or ink. I suggest to try other brands of paper and ink. See this post.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

The 2 images above are printed with a rather different birghtness/contrast ratio and show 2 effects as I see it, there are the vertical tracks of the pizza wheels as mentioned by @PeterBJ in the right image, and I see some horizontal banding there as well , both might be covered up in the much darker left print.

Please check the pizza wheel tracks after a day of drying time again, it happens with some types of papers/coatings that they disappear after a while.
Which type of paper is this 'everyday gloss photo paper' - how does the backside feel - more paperlike/fibrous or covered with a PE film like prints from a photo print shop ?

Please post a nozzle check of this printer.

 

[PenguinLust]

You can ignore the pizza roller. It's not on the photo print. Not sure how it got there, but like I said, the scanner sucks too. The horizontal banding is what I'm hoping to get under control.
The 2 images do have different brightness/contrast/saturation and everything. The scanner makes it even worse, but the print is still not great, but at least it's acceptable. I'd just like to correct the banding. The first image, btw, is not a print--it comes straight from my camera.
The paper is matte on the back. I printed on the glossy side. I also scanned jacket the paper came in.

 

[The Hat]

The paper is matte on the back. I printed on the glossy side. I also scanned jacket the paper came in.

Your nozzle check is terrible to read but all your colours seem to be there, the PGBK has some double image, which won’t affect your photos..

Can you print another nozzle check this time on some copy paper and that should help us enormously..

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Thanks for the feedback, the scan of the nozzle check is pretty weak, barely any color and much too bright, it's not clear if a scan could be improved with some adjustments of the scanner settings. I did a heavy contrast increase - no color reduction - that's the scanned colors - or grays



Each CMGY color runs via three different nozzle rows in this printhead - for different droplet sizes, the color bars for the smaller droplets are barely visible in the original scan, this would be an indication the printhead has reached the end of his useful life. It could happen that the driver is switching to different nozzle rows for different quality settings and thus generating different brightness levels of the print.
And there is another printhead weakness rather typical that half of the color bars are weaker than the other half which leads to banding in the print, that's all effects which cannot be cleaned or adjusted away.

My comments at this time are based on a nozzle check scan which is rather difficult to interpret

(Tracks of the pizza weels are clearly visible and are more visible on cast coated paper types as you are using it )

 

[PeterBJ]

The scanner in the Canon MG6120 is not that bad, but the default settings are no good for scanning a nozzle check. See this instruction about how to get a good scan of the nozzle check using your AIO.

 

[PenguinLust]

If it'll help, I tried taking pictures w/my phone's camera: it's a Moto G Power, only a couple of months out of the box. Unfortunately, it's still a bit faded (maybe the lighting in the room), but much improved. Ironically, the pizza roller can still be made out w/the phone. Trust me: you can't see it w/the naked eye.
@Peter that post about the nozzle check indicates that the default settings cause a pessimistic demonstration of the nozzle's performance. Since my nozzle check comes out ok, then it doesn't seem like making the driver adjustments are going to tell us what we need to know. In any case, I wasn't able to find that "Advanced settings" dialogue even adjusting for the language barrier.
What's copy paper? I may not have any right now.

 

[PeterBJ]

Copy paper = Normal plain paper, primarily intended for laser printers and photo copiers but also suitable for inkjet printers.

 

[PenguinLust]

Ah, well, the nozzle check was done on plain paper.