Print problem with Canon i950

[vernah]

Sent the previous response before I saw the new posts. I have done the nozzle patterns check and they seemed to be the same as one I had done a few weeks ago when everything was working okay. Re Grandad35's post - the green casts don't seem to be related to the dark or light shades in the image - they always fall in exactly the same place no matter what the picture. There is a greenish tint to the entire photo but the top and bottom on a portrait shot, or either side of a landscape is where the banding is really prominant. However, I'm wondering about the PhotoMagenta cart as that is the first one I replaced. The Magenta cart was replaced after the problem started so I don't think it's that one.

 

[kenban]

Not that this is going to help with your problem but....

Do not pay that to get a new print head its really not worth it. You can pick up a brand new canon printer that will come with a year warranty and new cartridges will only cost around the same or less. Right now Canon is also offering a $20 mail in rebate on almost all of their printers which it becomes $70 if you purchase a Canon digital camera as well.

The Canon Pixma iP6000D which is a 6 color printer similar to your i950 has an MSRP of $179.99 and you can find it cheaper online. Plus the Pixma printers now have dual paper paths and 2 sided printing.

 

[fotofreek]

Interesting that you have both a color cast and banding on both edges. Unrelated to cart problems Canon support has an article about banding on the trailing edge of borderless prints. This can occur if the paper has even a slight curve or curl. They suggest running each piece of paper over the edge of a table to reverse the curve. I solved the problem in a much simpler way. I never leave photo paper in the printer feed area as it can pick up a curl over a fairly short period of time. I always store it flat in a box and put it in the printer just before I do a print run.

 

[vernah]

In the past couple of days, since this problem started, I've been taking the paper out of the box/package as I need it.

 

[vernah]

Well, I checked the carts and I think they're all working because the ink levels have been going down - of course, I'm just assuming that if ink isn't getting out, the levels wouldn't change! Unfortunately, the only discarded cart that I had was the Cyan and when I put that back in and printed, there was no change. Wish I had kept the Magenta to try. I also cleaned the printhead again with compressed air. I'm not sure if this will help and if any of you would be interested, but I've scanned good and bad versions of the same photos so you can actually see what's going on. If you'd like to take a look, please let me know and I'll email them.

 

[Nifty]

Vernah, you can post the images using my server here: http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=36

You don't have to post the image, you can just upload it and then post the url / address of the image here and people can click on it.

 

[vernah]

That's great - thank you! I've posted them on the server and here are the links:

http://www.nifty-stuff.com/img/files/dognormal11.jpg
http://www.nifty-stuff.com/img/files/dogbad1.jpg
http://www.nifty-stuff.com/img/files/doorwaynormal1.jpg
http://www.nifty-stuff.com/img/files/doorwaybad1.jpg
http://www.nifty-stuff.com/img/files/frogbad1.jpg

The frogbad1 image is the only one that I don't have a good version of but it really shows up the green banding. As you can see, the overall hue is greenish on the bad pics but the banding on the edges is what is so consistent and prominent.

 

[Grandad35]

Vernah,

I took your good and bad images from the doorway and combined them onto a single image. I then separated the image into its Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black channels and added the 4 grayscale channels onto the image, as shown at (http://www.nifty-stuff.com/img/files/GoodBad.jpg).

All 4 channels look different, but the darker shades of magenta show the biggest difference - indicating that the "Bad" image is lacking magenta. The lighter magenta shades aren't as different, indicating that the photo magenta is probably not the problem.

The images are low resolution, and I can't see the banding that you described.

 

[vernah]

Thank you so much for analyzing the images and giving me your feedback. That's very interesting. When I changed the carts last week, the cyan and the magenta were the first ones I replaced and the problem seemed to start after that. I think I'll buy another magenta cart today and see if the problem continues. If it does, then I'll try cleaning the magenta nozzle on the print head again. I'll let you know what happens, but again. many thanks.

By the way, I am still able to see the green banding on the bad images that I put up, even though I did have to reduce the resolution in order to post them. The 'bad' image on the page you have put up shows a thick, light green band across the bottom of the image almost up to the waist of the person posing. Then, there is thinner band going across the very top of the photo.

 

[Grandad35]

Vernah,

This is a good example where being red-green color blind is a disadvantage - that's why I had to learn to separate the color channels to see what's happening. Now that you mention the two areas, it is obvious that the magenta channel is lighter on the building for the top few percent and the bottom 20%. This is a lighter magenta, so the problem could be in either the magenta or photo magenta.

Have you read (http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=165&p=1) post #6? On my i9900, the "Service test print" option prints color swatches of each ink as part of the test, and this makes it easy to find which color is not printing properly at the start of a print. If the first part of an image is missing a color, I suspect that there is a buildup on the heaters in the nozzles that requires the nozzles to get warm before they will start to "fire" - see (http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=63&p=1) post #8 for more details. I have experienced this problem on my bulk cyan ink (but not on OEM carts), and have found that soaking the nozzles in cleaning solution greatly improves the problem - see also post #4 in the same thread.

When a color goes missing at the end of a print, it usually means that the cart is starving the ink pickup, usually because the filter and/or sponge are clogged with ink residue. There are numerous threads dealing with this problem (e.g. http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=207). It is unusual on a new OEM cart, but it could happen, especially if the cart is old. You might want to heat the offending cart to about 140-160 degrees F, as this often reduces the clog. The thread (http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=207) discusses a procedure for using a microwave to heat refilled carts. If you try this procedure, heat the carts very slowly, as ink will be forced out of the vent if a cart is heated too quickly.