Has anyone ever seen this type of printer problem?..

I have an Epson Photo Printer, which is printing horizontal black lines across my prints. [The printer heads are 'clean'] It usually occurs at the beginning or end of a printed page. I scanned in a copy of something I printed as an example. You should be able to see the lines on the left side of the picture. They are straight & 'clean', not stray marks.

Lucia, are the marks down or across the page you print? It could be the thingy that moves the paper while you print that needs to be cleaned? I have an epson and I love it.

To my eyes it appears that the printer is printing even on blank parts of the paper.

This would basically mean that it's not a printer logic error.

However since it seems to go the full length of the page, I would suspect that the print head is either dragging, or that the paper is curling in the printer.

If you pull the paper out of the printer, do the sheets curl when stacked together, or when a single page is laid by itself?

Spotz

Can you email the pic to me so I can look at it full sized in photoshop?

I agree with Spotz, it could be the print head dragging.
Do you refill the cartridges?
What model # is the printer?
What resolution are you printing at?


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Jeff

Originally Posted by grampngram

Can you email the pic to me so I can look at it full sized in photoshop?

I agree with Spotz, it could be the print head dragging.
Do you refill the cartridges?
What model # is the printer?
What resolution are you printing at?


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Jeff

Click to expand...

It's an Epson 1280. I don't refill the cartridges but buy a version made by carrotink.com for the model.. The original photo was printed at a res of 300. I did check the print head alignment, which appeared okay to me.

I'll have to rescan the printed photo. The version I attached was scanned & saved at the file size/dimemsions that you are seeing it.

The 300 DPI may explain the lines I'm seeing inside the print, but not the ones outside. The main problem with Epsons is that when you increase the DPI it tends to darken the picture way down. Easily fixed in Photoshop, but a pain at times. I'd really like to see the full sized pic if you can scan it.

It could be something as basic as the black cartridge being worn out or possibly overfilled from the remanufacturer.


Jeff

Hmm, I use to have that problem on my other Epson printer. If trying cleaning or head alignment does not work, I usually change to another cartridge. Of course sometimes that does not work as well.

Are you using a original Epson cartridge? If you check their manual/FAQ they will mention something about these lines. Another alternative before changing the cartridge and if you have exhausted all other alternatives is to clean again and again. I once cleared out 20% of the ink tank before those lines were gone.

This is one reason why I do not like the Epson printers.