Need Advice Printing Photo's or replacing printer

[Mr.Noisy]

Ok, I have had a canon Ip3000 printer on my desk for several years for 4x6 and 8x10's, mainly b&w stuff, till about 6 months ago it was used weekly, using glossy photo paper (canon and epson) then it was disconnected for a while and now i cranked it up yesterday, have printed a photograph on canon 4x6 paper and there are Bands across the lower half of the image, ive tested several times with and without the gradient filters, in color & B&W and cleaned the print heads and the lines are still there. I shoot in RAW, use ACR then CS4 to process the images (adobe RGB across my workflow) then print from photoshop, ive also tried printing from image preview too and the lines are still there, the colors in the image are spot on except these bands. It's annoying, but that printer has been good to me, is the fault mine?? or do you reckon the printers kn@ckered through lack of use, replacing it's not a problem as long as the printers at fault, any advice greatly received

 

[Ruahrc]

I have never had good luck with inkjet printers that don't get used often/regularly. Seems that once the ink dries it takes a lot to get it back working right again.

You could try replacing the ink cartridges and manually cleaning the print heads (as in, physically clean them yourself) to see if it helps.

If you don't print that often anymore, perhaps going to an online printing service would be a more effective long-term solution. I print so rarely that it is not worth it to buy my own printer, as I can get a better output and at a wider variety of sizes by just printing online.

Ruahrc

 

[Mr.Noisy]

Thanks for the quick reply Ruahrc but ive cleaned the heads, i think the printer could be past it, up till i stopped using it it was perfect, but i feel it's time to replace it, thanks

 

[Ruahrc]

By cleaned the heads do you mean you've run the "clean the print heads" routine from the printer control, or that you've physically disassembled and cleaned the internals yourself? I've seen in the past where the "clean heads" function did not solve the issue, but a good old fashioned disassembly and manual, hands on cleaning did.

 

[Mr.Noisy]

By cleaned the heads do you mean you've run the "clean the print heads" routine from the printer control, or that you've physically disassembled and cleaned the internals yourself? I've seen in the past where the "clean heads" function did not solve the issue, but a good old fashioned disassembly and manual, hands on cleaning did.

Ive run the clean heads routine, this things old, cant take apart to manually clean, ive seen the ip3600 and that you can take the heads out for cleaning or replacing, so i think it's time to invest in a more user friendly printer, to do as the ip3000 did, 4x6, 5x7 and 8x10 prints, from the reviews the ip3600 is pretty good, thanks for your time anyway