Little striping problem with Canon Pixma MP760

[johnwarfin]

@johnwarfin: here is the link to the nebula :
http://www.partage-fichiers.com/upload/Eta_Carinae_Nebula_2.jpg

The "free" link worked for me. Thank you for posting that. It took all day but was worth it. I can zoom with XP pic viewer and that takes all day too. It reminds me of the Mandelbrot jpgs that take weeks to explore. As an amateur astromomer I've been collecting NGC3372 plates for years and found your file thrilling.

My printer has even worse lines when I print the same area. They are not noticeable with family photos but exaggerated with the nebulae. In my case it is related to wear of the mechanical parts.

Thanks again.

 

[vilrockerdefer]

I tried printing the color pattern as ghwellsjr suggested : on plain paper with max quality.

Here is the result :

I have no striping on : blue, magenta, and grey
Little striping on : cyan
Medium striping on : green and red
Max striping on : yellow.

Are you still suggesting I change ink instead of paper ? I use third party refillable cartridge specially designed to allow a needle in it, and third party unidentifiable ink.

 

[ghwellsjr]

Not ink but cartridges. Third party cartridges rarely have two sponge materials which results in inferior ink flow. I only recommend Canon OEM cartridges and as soon as the reservoir is empty (low ink warning), refill with good quality ink using the German refill method. I recommend Inktec dye inks.

 

[vilrockerdefer]

Before I apply those precious recommandations, I will still have to ask one question. When you say : "Canon PPP will not change the way the image prints", can you explain ?

I ask this because on plain paper, striping is a lot worse than on the photo papers I used. So my guess was that paper does change the way a picture prints.

 

[ghwellsjr]

I meant it won't change the way the printer puts the ink down so it won't solve your striping problem, although different papers will change the shading of the different colors. That, after all, is why we have to select the different papers.

I think the reason your striping problem showed up so much more obviously on plain paper when you selected PPP is because photo papers use a lot more ink than plain paper so it saturated the ink.

 

[vilrockerdefer]

I think the reason your striping problem showed up so much more obviously on plain paper when you selected PPP is because photo papers use a lot more ink than plain paper so it saturated the ink.

Then, if Canon PPP uses even more ink than the photo papers I used, it might help me I guess. Or do all photo papers use the same amount of ink ?

 

[ghwellsjr]

I believe the glossy photo papers use more ink than the matte photo paper but I'm not sure. The point is that the Canon designers make the printer mix the ink differently to produce the same image on the different papers. And the different qualities, in general, lay down more passes with the paper moving a smaller amount, but trying to keep the total amount of ink the same (I would guess) but for some reason, PPP with quality 1 just happened to maximize whatever problem your cartridges were having.

A couple years ago, when I had an 8-color i9900 printer, I did some tests to find out how it mixed inks, in particular to learn under what conditions it used the red and green inks. What I found was an assortment of conditions under which it would use those two inks with different papers and qualities. It really seemed rather arbitrary but it's what the designers came up with, we presume to make the colors come out the same on the different papers.

On another occasion, I ran some other tests to find out how fast this same printer could print a page for the different papers and in the different qualities. Again, an assortment of conditions to produce different speeds, with different number of passes and turning bi-directionality on or off.

All of these parameters are designed to trade off speed of print with quality of print for the different papers. All we can say for sure is that it just happened that PPP quality 1 made your problem show up. Now we have to find a solution to get rid of the problem.

 

[clhabarnes]

Came here for help and tried all the solutions mentioned. Finally went to Canon and started working my way down their check list. Nothing changed with the horizontal stripes until I changed the print quality settings. Here's the advice that worked for me:
Solution: Change the Print Quality Settings (Windows)

Change the Print Quality Settings (Windows)
The Quality setting controls how finely ink droplets are placed on the printed page. Depending on the type of paper being used a higher Print Quality setting does not always insure a better print. Print speed will decrease as the Print Quality setting is increased. Follow the instructions below to change the print quality settings in the Canon printer driver for the Windows operating system through a printing application.

1. Select the command you use to perform printing from the program you are using. (In general, select 'Print' on the File menu to open the Print dialog box.)

2. Select your model name and click 'Preferences' (or 'Properties'). The printer driver setup window appears.

3. Set the desired print quality in the 'Print Quality' section.

4. Select 'High', 'Standard', or 'Draft / Fast'.

To set more detailed print quality settings, follow this procedure:

1. Select 'Custom' and click 'Set'.
2. In the Set Print Quality dialog drag the slide bar from 'Fast' to 'Fine' to select the print quality.
Note: There are five options in 'Quality'. However, selectable options are limited depending on the media type.

3. Select 'Auto', 'Dither', or 'Diffusion' from the 'Halftoning' section.

This worked for me. I hope it helps someone else. Christopher

 

[vilrockerdefer]

Hello again,


I waited for a month or so to get Canon PR-101 paper in A4 format but it still hasn't arrived so, as I quite urgently had to provide pictures for framing, I decided I would try to change the ink cartridges to Canon genuine to see if it solves my problem.

What I got is absolutely no improvement. In fact, I noticed that, with time, the problem had gotten worse and Canon ink didn't help a notch. The problem now occurs as well at "quality 2".

(Here is what I got lately :

)

So I am asking myself if the right person in this affair is not johnwarfin when he stated that :

The older the printer is the worse it gets as print head rails start to wear.

This sounds quite pessimistic to me. Do we have any means of reversing this aging process ? Changing a part ? Print head rails ? Is it possible ? Simple ? Very long ? Costly ?

Thanks, as usual, a lot.


Fred

 

[The Hat]

vilrockerdefer..

Lovely Picture despite the banding..