Horizontal banding on an Epson printer when printing Christmas cards
November 30, 2015 11:49 AM Subscribe
I'm getting some heavy horizontal banding when I try to print a colour image using my Epson WF-3520 printer. I have checked the conventional sources of advice and tried cleaning the nozzles and aligning the print heads. But I'm still getting the banding! Can anyone advise?
In more detail: this year, I'm trying to print off Christmas cards with my own design. I have laid out 2 to an A4 sheet of glossy card.
Unfortunately, I keep getting heavy horizontal bands on the upper half of the page. I have tried googling and checking the conventional sources of help, which led me to clean the nozzles and align the print heads. But that still doesn't seem to have resolved the problem.
Is there anything else I can try?
In more detail: this year, I'm trying to print off Christmas cards with my own design. I have laid out 2 to an A4 sheet of glossy card.
Unfortunately, I keep getting heavy horizontal bands on the upper half of the page. I have tried googling and checking the conventional sources of help, which led me to clean the nozzles and align the print heads. But that still doesn't seem to have resolved the problem.
Is there anything else I can try?
There's a lot of things that can cause horizontal banding on an inkjet printer, but most things related to the head or nozzles will be present everywhere on the page. The fact that it's only happening in one part of the page makes me wonder if it's related to the paper feed. Does this happen with thinner paper? What if you use the rear paper tray instead of the paper cassette? Also, the manual seems to say if you have a lower paper cassette, it should only be used with thinner paper, so check for that.
posted by aubilenon at 12:17 PM on November 30, 2015
posted by aubilenon at 12:17 PM on November 30, 2015
I get banding on my Epson 3540 if I haven't printed color in a while. Sometimes I just need to clean the nozzles repeatedly until it gets better (which unfortunately wastes ink). You don't want to use the rear paper feed for card stock. You might also want to check the printer setting to make sure you have set the correct paper type (regular or card stock, glossy or matte). Finally, you may want to try a matte finish card stock. That's what I use for my Xmas cards.
posted by jabo at 12:26 PM on November 30, 2015
posted by jabo at 12:26 PM on November 30, 2015
If you have any kind of "quick printing" or "econo-mode" setting, be sure that's turned off. I had an Epson printer on which I had to go manually set that every time I printed something; nothing I did would make that setting stick.
posted by bink at 3:01 PM on November 30, 2015
posted by bink at 3:01 PM on November 30, 2015
Make sure you have the right paper thickness chosen in the menu on the printer. If the paper is thick load it manually. Make sure you have the right paper profile, or one near enough. If you did all your work in Photo shop, then up fron in the print dialogue, choose let Photoshop run the output. Good luck.
A tech once told me to wet the foam under the print head with 1/2 windex and 1/2 water, half a teaspoon. I will run 6-7 test prints, rather than clean print heads.
posted by Oyéah at 7:11 PM on November 30, 2015
A tech once told me to wet the foam under the print head with 1/2 windex and 1/2 water, half a teaspoon. I will run 6-7 test prints, rather than clean print heads.
posted by Oyéah at 7:11 PM on November 30, 2015
Epsons are notorious for their print heads getting clogged, especially if they've sat unused for a while. Unfortunately, unless you've got one with replaceable print heads, you're pretty much hosed once they do get clogged. :-(
posted by jferg at 9:07 PM on November 30, 2015
posted by jferg at 9:07 PM on November 30, 2015
I'm going to bum you out here, but some printers just suck at this. I finally garbage canned my HP years ago(nozzle on(overpriced) cartridge, not on the head) because of this issue perpetually bugging me and replaced it with a canon photo printer.
I wouldn't buy the hunk of junk canon again either for other reasons, but the point is some printers do this and some don't. The HP had done it since it was brand new.
An epson workforce is not exactly designed for full graphic or super ink-heavy complex designs i'd imagine. I've gotten the best results, honestly, from photo-specific printers or color lasers.
posted by emptythought at 11:11 PM on November 30, 2015
I wouldn't buy the hunk of junk canon again either for other reasons, but the point is some printers do this and some don't. The HP had done it since it was brand new.
An epson workforce is not exactly designed for full graphic or super ink-heavy complex designs i'd imagine. I've gotten the best results, honestly, from photo-specific printers or color lasers.
posted by emptythought at 11:11 PM on November 30, 2015
Response by poster: Thanks everyone. I need to test some of these answers to find out which one is the "right" one, but there are plenty of useful ideas here - so, thank you very much!
posted by lucien_reeve at 1:28 PM on December 2, 2015
posted by lucien_reeve at 1:28 PM on December 2, 2015
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