I have a problem....

[Richard]

If you enjoy printing photographs at home, or you want to closely control that aspect of image creation, I can see that it makes sense. Also, if you're heavily invested in printers, cartridges and whatnot.

But if it's driving you mad, costing a fortune and producing mediocre results, maybe you should let someone else have the hassle.

-R

 

[Charzes44]

Charles, if you haven't used the printer for a while, you might have to do multiple print head deep cleans, and nozzle check prints.

My Epson Stylus Pro R3880 (a pigment ink printer) hadn't been used for 4-5 years or so.

It needed about 4x nozzle cleans, and a power clean to get it functional again.

It will print most of the visible part of a ProPhotoRGB 16 bit colour space. My monitors all display ~100% aRGB colour space.

It's always a good idea to use an .icc colour profile for your paper and printer.

John, thank you for your response and suggestions. I previously last used my printer in June, it appeared okay then. I have done the test print/nozzle check, and everything looks good. I can only think that it is a driver issue, but it can be quite wasteful and expensive trying out all the alternatives! I'll see what Canon have to say.

 

[Iron]

For the price of one cartridge I can get about fourteen 8 x 10 printed. As I would be surprised if I had printed much more than thirty or so in the time I've had the printer, it doesn't make financial sense.

You will have a better break-even with home business/semi-pro printers and with ink tanks. There used to be a site costperpage.nz but that is not defunct but that site aided me in getting the break-even of my printing ecstasy. Unless top-end photo printers like the Canon Pros and the 7-cartridge Epsons are preferred, consumer printers are a no-go for me.

I had the ET-4850 which is a 4-tank pigment/dye hybrid ink printer which I used for ~10,000 prints including A4 and I only needed to top it up less than once so we were able to sell it with a few extra ink bottles. The prints will rival that of commercial printers from 10 to 15 years ago. It was only sold because the drivers were rather slow for scanning. The Epsons in Southeast Asia (SEA) are all pigment ones and they are most popular there. Some of them had their L-Series Epson ink tanks for almost 20 years now. I haven't tried the L-Series yet as I am not sure if I can even bring one to NZ.

Some ink tank printers have different characteristics. Epson EcoTanks have a maintenance tank for the waste ink, unlike others which don't, and one can buy an extra tank for NZD17.00 but this is after a few years, depending on use. HP ink tanks produce deep, high contrast and high-gloss images. They don't have a maintenance tank so it will have to be either the user or a technician who will replace the waste pad. The heads are user-replaceable, though. Canon ink tanks don't have a replaceable waste pad until the later G-6XXX series. I am on the fence with that as the older models really made a mess with their waste pad design. Epson has been doing ink tanks in SEA for decades so they have the upper hand. I would say, though, that in terms of standard print quality, HP is somewhat matching with the print quality of Epson in Epson High Gloss papers and Canon matte ones. The difference is that with the piezo technology of Epson, the ink can penetrate deep into the non-gloss paper substrate of the glossy paper, resulting in much longer life.

The Epson EcoTank ET-8550 is on my list now as I am confident I will break-even in one year with my way of printing. I can use that as a dedicated photo printer and the business HP OfficeJet for, well, business use.

But if it's driving you mad, costing a fortune and producing mediocre results, maybe you should let someone else have the hassle.

I truly agree. Printing photos is a totally different world. It requires a lot of dedication and going all-in. Occassionaly-used printers require a lot of maintenance, just like parked cars, vintage or modern. If one's final image is virtual/soft-copy, a printer isn't needed and there are many print labs that can help with the hard-copies. If the final product is hard-copy, DIY printing can truly be rewarding as some print labs cannot handle TIFF and higher bit-depth printing.

By the way, printing is anti-GAS, at least for me but it is a story for another day.

I previously last used my printer in June, it appeared okay then.

Was it kept ON or was it turned-OFF after printing in June? Cheers.

 

[ShipleyNW]

By the way, printing is anti-GAS, at least for me but it is a story for another day.

Keep us posted. I'd read that story.

 

[Charzes44]

You will have a better break-even with home business/semi-pro printers and with ink tanks. There used to be a site costperpage.nz but that is not defunct but that site aided me in getting the break-even of my printing ecstasy. Unless top-end photo printers like the Canon Pros and the 7-cartridge Epsons are preferred, consumer printers are a no-go for me.

I had the ET-4850 which is a 4-tank pigment/dye hybrid ink printer which I used for ~10,000 prints including A4 and I only needed to top it up less than once so we were able to sell it with a few extra ink bottles. The prints will rival that of commercial printers from 10 to 15 years ago. It was only sold because the drivers were rather slow for scanning. The Epsons in Southeast Asia (SEA) are all pigment ones and they are most popular there. Some of them had their L-Series Epson ink tanks for almost 20 years now. I haven't tried the L-Series yet as I am not sure if I can even bring one to NZ.

Some ink tank printers have different characteristics. Epson EcoTanks have a maintenance tank for the waste ink, unlike others which don't, and one can buy an extra tank for NZD17.00 but this is after a few years, depending on use. HP ink tanks produce deep, high contrast and high-gloss images. They don't have a maintenance tank so it will have to be either the user or a technician who will replace the waste pad. The heads are user-replaceable, though. Canon ink tanks don't have a replaceable waste pad until the later G-6XXX series. I am on the fence with that as the older models really made a mess with their waste pad design. Epson has been doing ink tanks in SEA for decades so they have the upper hand. I would say, though, that in terms of standard print quality, HP is somewhat matching with the print quality of Epson in Epson High Gloss papers and Canon matte ones. The difference is that with the piezo technology of Epson, the ink can penetrate deep into the non-gloss paper substrate of the glossy paper, resulting in much longer life.

The Epson EcoTank ET-8550 is on my list now as I am confident I will break-even in one year with my way of printing. I can use that as a dedicated photo printer and the business HP OfficeJet for, well, business use.

I truly agree. Printing photos is a totally different world. It requires a lot of dedication and going all-in. Occassionaly-used printers require a lot of maintenance, just like parked cars, vintage or modern. If one's final image is virtual/soft-copy, a printer isn't needed and there are many print labs that can help with the hard-copies. If the final product is hard-copy, DIY printing can truly be rewarding as some print labs cannot handle TIFF and higher bit-depth printing.

By the way, printing is anti-GAS, at least for me but it is a story for another day.


Was it kept ON or was it turned-OFF after printing in June? Cheers.

It turns itself off when unused for a short time! Save electricity and all that!

 

[wee-pics]

Recently, when I print one of my photos, this for example:
View attachment 488524

the print comes out like this (a bit paler actually!):
View attachment 488525

It is the same from my both iPad and iMac. The only thing that has changed, since the prints were okay, is my service provider, from Virgin Media to Sky. My printer is a Canon TS8150, and I am using decent ink and Canon photo paper.
Please, can anyone help me correct this fault?

I know this problem too well, Charles.
And maybe I can provide you with a solution.

When I got prints with that problem I asked the young guy at the local photo shop who did all the work with the printing. He worked with a 27'' calibrated iMac and a Windows PC of the same size as well. And what he suggested to me solved my problems.

He pointed out that the Macs have much more contrast on the screen. If you look at your photos on a Mac and then on a Windows PC (or the TV-screen) you'll see that both the colors and the contrast are much less intense on a Windows device. So he asked me to increase the contrast and saturation of the photos I want to have printed and to lower their brightness as well a bit.
You can't imagine how happy I was when I got my first printed calendars (A3 and A4) after that. Everything looked as I had wished.

So now every time I want to get prints I have a look at the photos both on my wife's Windows PC and on the 32'' TV-screen. And if they look OK there, I'll be content with the result when I get the prints. I guess this should work with your printer at home too. (Btw, none of my screens is calibrated). At least it's worth an attempt.

 

[Charzes44]

I know this problem too well, Charles.
And maybe I can provide you with a solution.

When I got prints with that problem I asked the young guy at the local photo shop who did all the work with the printing. He worked with a 27'' calibrated iMac and a Windows PC of the same size as well. And what he suggested to me solved my problems.

He pointed out that the Macs have much more contrast on the screen. If you look at your photos on a Mac and then on a Windows PC (or the TV-screen) you'll see that both the colors and the contrast are much less intense on a Windows device. So he asked me to increase the contrast and saturation of the photos I want to have printed and to lower their brightness as well a bit.
You can't imagine how happy I was when I got my first printed calendars (A3 and A4) after that. Everything looked as I had wished.

So now every time I want to get prints I have a look at the photos both on my wife's Windows PC and on the 32'' TV-screen. And if they look OK there, I'll be content with the result when I get the prints. I guess this should work with your printer at home too. (Btw, none of my screens is calibrated). At least it's worth an attempt.

Thanks for your thoughts Walter.
However, I don't have any Windows devices, only iPad and iMac. Also my photos printed perfectly until recently by selecting one, then instruct it to be printed. I have not made any adjustments to brightness, contrast etc. and now get crappy prints with no change to ink, paper or anything else you could think of!

 

[Iron]

Keep us posted. I'd read that story.

Copy. I've already shared the thoughts on another thread so I won't skew the line of thought here, haha.

It turns itself off when unused for a short time! Save electricity and all that!

That can be a neat feature, however, there is a chance that the nozzles, heads or tubes may dry up. My printers, when not in use, go to a 4W to 7W standby mode and clean their print heads periodically, say every week, to keep them fresh and clean. This is true for HP and Epson. I haven't had a Canon printer since 2015 but that was on another office branch.

I have not made any adjustments to brightness, contrast etc. and now get crappy prints with no change to ink, paper or anything else you could think of!

If your printer connected to the internet/cloud, it may have applied an update, which can ruin the printing modes. I am not a fan of automatic updates and I turned them off in all my printers. If its offline, then the firmware issue affecting your print quality doesn't apply to your situation.

 

[Charzes44]

Copy. I've already shared the thoughts on another thread so I won't skew the line of thought here, haha.

That can be a neat feature, however, there is a chance that the nozzles, heads or tubes may dry up. My printers, when not in use, go to a 4W to 7W standby mode and clean their print heads periodically, say every week, to keep them fresh and clean. This is true for HP and Epson. I haven't had a Canon printer since 2015 but that was on another office branch.

If your printer connected to the internet/cloud, it may have applied an update, which can ruin the printing modes. I am not a fan of automatic updates and I turned them off in all my printers. If its offline, then the firmware issue affecting your print quality doesn't apply to your situation.

Thanks for your response Timo. I have done the test print and nozzle check, no problem there. Both my iMac and iPad are updated to their latest versions, so that could be the cause. They are both permanently online.
I have reached out to Canon, who have replied and requested specific details, which I have sent them. I am now waiting for them to get back to me, hopefully with a solution!

 

[Charzes44]

Canon contacted me again to say that all my settings appear to be correct, going on the information and photos I sent them. During the fruitless experimentation, paper settings etc., I ran out of Canon paper, but had a quantity of Permajet on hand, so not really a problem! The nice lady at Canon suggested I check the paper settings in the printer (I already had), and if that was okay (it was) to reset settings/settings only. So I did, and I ensured that I was on the latest firmware, just in case! And something odd was happening. Using my iPad, when I used the print command, the usual printing menu appeared, saying 'no printer selected' etc etc and the paper size defaulted to 31/2”x5”, with a choice of many other sizes. However, when I selected my printer (I only have one!) the choice of selectable paper sizes changed to A4 and 120x120mm only, and no way to set a different size. New printer methinks! I ordered some more Canon paper (Amazon is amazing, next day delivery, even on a Sunday), and immediately put it in the printer. And guess what, all the correct paper sizes reappeared! That's naughty Canon, I used to use Epson and Permajet papers whenever I wished. And not only that, my printer is printing perfectly again. I compared a print I made today with one I made when the printer was brand new in January 2022 (same photo), and you cannot tell them apart.
I am delighted to say I don't have a problem any more!
My sincere thanks to everyone who contributed to this thread.