i860 wit's end

[Taigen]

I found this site because I too am having trouble with my Canon printer. I have the PIXMA iP5000 and can NOT get it to print magenta or any shade of red. Only pinks and orange. I have cleaned, removed the print head and cleaned them, used canon inks etc. I just can not figure it out. The red (magenta) has always had an issue with clogging but now won't print the correct tone.
Poppy...I noticed your test pattern sheet and mine doesn't print up like that. Mine won't show the lower 6M bar. Also the side bars next to the ink ref numbers that are grey in yours...are green in mine. I also do not have any of the lower test bars that you show but that could be because of the models being different.
I am ready to take a hammer to this thing! It is really frustrating.

 

[Trigger 37]

popsy,... I'm sorry, I can't see one thing wrong with any of your nozzle check. So if you are getting bad photo prints, it is due to some other issue. Sometimes the problem comes down to bad ink carts. They supply enough ink to print a perfect nozzle check. which is what I see from your scan, but they don't supply sufficient ink to print a full color photo page. This is called "Ink Starbvation". Your note says you can't get it to print any color or shade of red, but the magenta print in the nozzle check looks as good as any i've seen, even from my iP6600D.

So my question to you is,... what kind of ink carts are you using. How long have you been using the same ink carts. How many times have you refilled them. What brand of ink do you use. What kind of Photo paper do you use. What settings do you use to print. What software do you use to print. It would also help if you scanned a copy of something you have printed that you think is really bad.

 

[popsy]

Sorry Trigger, you may have confused me with someone else. All my colors print. They just appear to print with low resolution. I'm using Canon ink, some of which are a couple of weeks old, the others maybe 5 or 6 months. I had the printer serviced by a Canon service person last summer because I couldn't get a nozzle check, or image print, with out having missing areas. The prints started looking less sharp and clear about 2 years ago, then the problems with not being able to clear the nozzles. I had used third-party ink from Inkgrabber and from Inkjet Madness during 2004/2005. I had problem with one black cartridge emptying itself inside the printer. I stopped using them because I preferred the color I got from Canon ink.

The Canon guy cleaned up the printer and said everything else was fine. I was looking forward to nice prints again but they weren't any better, though the nozzles were cleaner. Now, even with the new printhead I get poor-looking prints generally and banding that shows up in the darker color. They just don't have that crisp look that I associate with Canon printers.

I don't know if the differences will show, but I'll post the original and the print of it. Here they are.

This is the original

This is the print

 

[on30trainman]

For such a sudden drop in vividness and resolution it appears, IMHO, that some setting in the program you use to print or in the printer driver got changed by mistake. Are you noticing that the print is coming out faster - maybe paper type set as non photo paper. Did you accidentally set lower resolution in the printing program? Did you change paper? In all the years that I have been using Canon printers, both with Canon and Hobbicolor inks, I have never had such a problem. Especially since your nozzle checks look so good.

Steve W.

 

[popsy]

I just tried printing from 2 different programs. The prints look identical.

I wasn't pleased with the color rendering when I was using third party inks, so I set up a profile with color corrections. I am not now using them, I'm printing to default. The above print is on Canon matte photo paper. That's the best print I can get. This printer used to do a decent job on just plain paper and wonderful on photo paper.

I appreciate any and all suggestions as to how to correct this annoying problem.

 

[Grandad35]

The scanned image does not show banding, and all 4 ink colors seem to be present (but at lower intensities than the original image). Neither of the images that you posted have an embedded color space.

A few questions:
1. Is your monitor calibrated?
2. Is your scanner calibrated?
3. What color space was used for the original image?
4. What software are you using to print?

By way of example, an aRGB image will look washed out if printed as sRGB.

 

[popsy]

I'm not familiar with thinking in terms of the phrase "color space", nor can I say if my scanner is calibrated. I'm aware that printed images are unlikely to look the same as monitor images. I don't expect them to look the same. What I do expect is that a print will look crisp and sharp, not as if it were printed at an extremely low resolution, and without the banding that is visible in reality. Faint, but still there. This printer used to do just that, it produced crisp, sharp images with no banding. They did not look the same as they appeared on a monitor, nor did I expect them to.

I mostly print from the Picture Window application. I printed this same image also from Paint Shop Pro, and also from just the printer software. The prints all looked the same.

I've probably not answered your questions well, but that's because of my ignorance.

 

[Grandad35]

Your original image is only 370 x 470 pixels. Using 300 pixels/inch as a baseline for printing a sharp image, this image can only be expected to generate a sharp print at 1.56 x 1.23 inches or smaller. Likewise, the scanned image is only 370x452 pixels. Did you downsize these images to limit the file size? If so, can you post a "100% crop" of about 400x400 pixels from the original and the scanned image to show more detail and demonstrate the problem?

I looked at highly magnified versions of both images, and can't see any obvious banding in the print. I DO see jpeg compression artifacts on the original that do not appear on the scanned image (as though the driver applied a noise reduction procedure before printing), but the resolution is so low that it is hard to see much detail.

If you aren't concerned about the shift in color, ignore the questions about color space.

 

[tyamada]

popsy:

Have you tried to print on Glossy Photo Paper?
I would think printing on matte paper would soften the details, even printing on plain paper will cause loss of detail.

 

[popsy]

I downloaded and installed a new driver. Again. I'm getting pretty decent prints today using Matte photo paper. Plain paper still is not so good and has visible banding. I think I will just stop worrying about it now and images I want good prints of I will use good paper. Thanks to everyone for their help and assistance.