printer is "seeing double"

I'm printing with an Epson 1400, and recently I am getting slightly soft, as in fuzzy, prints. I thought I wasn't focusing properly, or that something was wrong with my lens. I did three prints of the same subject using three different cameras, and they were all what I would call soft.

I unearthed a print I made several years ago and reprinted it...the original print was tack sharp and the second one, made today, was slightly double as seen under a loupe. I conclude it's the printer, not the camera, not my focusing, not the lens.

I can think of two things to try, one is the alignment utility and the other is cleaning the transparent strip behind the head. Any suggestions before I proceed? BTW, am using a black inkset, 100% Eboni in the K position, various dilutions in the other five. The b/w prints are conversions of a color file. Am printing with QTR.

Thanks all!

Could you upload crops from the fuzzy and sharp prints to show the problem?

It might be a print head alignment problem, so cleaning the timing/encoder strip and running the print head alignment sounds like a good idea to me.

Here's a couple of photos... the original print is of a portion of a building, it's about an 8x10. There's also a closeup of the tip of the foliage top, including the edge of a dime for scale. You can see the doubling quite clearly.

Excuse the lack of color correction in the closeup... I was photographing under a tungsten lamp, handheld. Didn't want to take the time to white balance it, but it does the job.

@PeterBJ : Here is yet another print, this time it's a crop of that foliage tip as it looked in the original print, before my prints began to print double. Note, even though it's a bit fuzzy (handheld again) it's not double.

@PeterBJ

Happy to report some progress. Ran the alignment utility, the one that's under "Maintenance" in the software. My print is noticeably sharper. Still a ways to go but much better. What would help is knowing when to stop. Am I supposed to end up with all 5's? I think I had 5-5-4 and decided to quit after six cycles. Will run some more tests tomorrow, including the one pictured in this post.

Next: the encoder strip. I've searched but so far can't find a thread on how to use that, any leads would be much appreciated. Especially, what to use to clean it safely.

Thanks, all....

Instructions for a different Canon printer's timing strip but the principles are the same for your printer:

http://downloads.canon.com/cpr/software/mf/MP620_TimingStripCleaning.pdf

A window cleaner with Ammonia like Windex works very well for this cleaning. It is actually better than Isopropyl Alcohol for removing ink mist as the inks are water based, not alcohol based.

Thanks to you both... one thing, as I continue, when do I quit the Alignment utility? In other words, how many cycles are necessary? I did six, after I had reached 5's in two of the tests and a 4 in the third test. I've looked at several on-line helps for this utility but cannot find how to know it's finished... should I aim for all 5's? Interestingly, the first cycle took a long time, the initial tests were 5, 1, and 2.

I'll do the decoder strip cleaning today.