i950 banding

Has anyone had any problems with the canon i950 banding. All I can see in any photo with continuous tone, are bands. I've run the alignment a few times and it's set up properly. Am I being too picky?

jonboy said:

Has anyone had any problems with the canon i950 banding. All I can
see in any photo with continuous tone, are bands. I've run the
alignment a few times and it's set up properly. Am I being too
picky?

Click to expand...

Hi jonboy - I have only had my i950 a couple of days, but I also encountered some slight banding when running some initial tests using some cheap glossy paper. Have also heard that Kodak and HP papers may also cause some problems.

If you can give us some more details of your print setup (software, settings and paper) maybe one of us here will be able to run some comparative tests for you
Andy

jonboy said:

Has anyone had any problems with the canon i950 banding.

Click to expand...

I have the same problem with my i850 but I haven't found a solution yet. look at the following link for details:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1003&message=4587774

jonboy said:

Am I being too picky?

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That's what I am asking myself too, but I have an old Epson Stylus color 880, which doesn't show any visible banding at all and I think a new photo printer shouldn't give me worse results than the Stylus 880.

Please let me know If you find a solution, I guess it might also work for my i850.

greets caix

--
http://www.pbase.com/caix
http://www.8ung.at/phil

I have tried the canon pro (sample pack included with printer) Ilford Smooth Pearl, and Epson Photo Glossy, and they all show the banding in area's of continuous tone. It is visible to me at up to ~ 4 feet (probable more so because I know it's there). Upon closer inspection, it appears as though the magenta stands out the most as a visible band. But as I said I have run the alignment several times.

My settings are:

Media Type: PPPG for canon, and High Gloss Photo Film for Ilford (their recommendation) and epson
Print Quality: Custom set to 1
Colour Adjustment: Auto

As an experiment; and this is theoretical; try setting your quality to 2, especially if your files are older less resolution or .jpg condensed. You could be laying down too much ink.

I'm not an expert on the i950, don't know how anyone could be as yet, but try some adjustments and let us know. Mine is fine (actually amazing) on 4x6 even with older 640x480 files on 4x6 using PPPlus Glossy.

ref:================================

jonboy said:

My settings are:

Media Type: PPPG for canon, and High Gloss Photo Film for Ilford
(their recommendation) and epson
Print Quality: Custom set to 1
Colour Adjustment: Auto

Click to expand...

jonboy said:

Am I being too picky?

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Banding shouldn't be there. If you can see it with your naked eyes, then you're not too picky.

--
John
http://www.pbase.com/johnrweb/ A PBase Supporter
http://www.pbase.com/domdom/

This sucker's going back. I tried printing a colour block from PS, and, you guessed it, banding. I'm hoping it's just a lemon, because any of the photo's I've done w/o alot of continuous tone look fantastic. Thanks for all the feedback!

This is the first time I have come across of the i950 with banding 'problem'. I am assuming you are using the Canon paper. Continuous mid-tones are very difficult to print. Especially if magenta or cyan is involved (as opposed to light magenta and light cyan).

If you have a scanner, could you please try to capture what you saw and share with us? I think it's worthwhile to take your i950 back for another. Check out if the new one is okay in the shop before taking it.

jonboy said:

This sucker's going back. I tried printing a colour block from PS,
and, you guessed it, banding. I'm hoping it's just a lemon, because
any of the photo's I've done w/o alot of continuous tone look
fantastic. Thanks for all the feedback!

Click to expand...

--
Fotografer
...like, a total himbo

I had this prob too....turns out i was selecting the wrong things in the alignment test...instead of chooseing the column cell with the least visible band, i was doing it opposite...

be sure you're doing the alignment test on plain paper (i think that's what the instruction manual says), maybe scan you're alignment test and circle the choices you made.

after pinting alot, on one print in then noticed a lil banding....realigned, and voila, fixed it right up.

good luck!

sjr

fotografer said:

If you have a scanner, could you please try to capture what you saw
and share with us? I think it's worthwhile to take your i950 back
for another. Check out if the new one is okay in the shop before
taking it.

jonboy said:

This sucker's going back. I tried printing a colour block from PS,
and, you guessed it, banding. I'm hoping it's just a lemon, because
any of the photo's I've done w/o alot of continuous tone look
fantastic. Thanks for all the feedback!

Click to expand...

--
Fotografer
...like, a total himbo

Click to expand...

jonboy said:

This sucker's going back. I tried printing a colour block from PS,
and, you guessed it, banding. I'm hoping it's just a lemon, because
any of the photo's I've done w/o alot of continuous tone look
fantastic. Thanks for all the feedback!

Click to expand...

Please have a look on this review
http://www.photo-i.co.uk/Reviews/interactive/Canon%20i950/page_6.htm
Do you face the same thing as the red will have diagonal banding?
Hope this explain.

--
Regards,
Zhen Ming

The banding is visible across the photo (the direction the the printhead goes across the paper). I'm afraid I don't have a flatbed scanner to show you what I'm seeing.

Thanks for all the posts

I have been using an S800 and had terrible problems with banding. Tried cleaning the printhead without help. Consulted with Canon and ended up buying a new printhead. Now it's printing well. Since it's a photo printer, there should be no banding.

If the printer is in the warentee period, send off for a new printhead. Weink has a printhead cleaner that is nice.

First try a deep cleaning x2-3 then print a test. If there are segments missing, I run a document I made of blocks of red, yellow, blue, cyan, magenta and black. That will generally send enough ink through the printhead to open any spots.

Banding can also be due to a mis-selection of paper in the print dialog. Try different settings. Different papers, though all gloss for example, will have different characteristics of ink absorption. So try different paper settings to improve your results.
Hope that helps
Craig

jonboy said:

Has anyone had any problems with the canon i950 banding. All I can
see in any photo with continuous tone, are bands. I've run the
alignment a few times and it's set up properly. Am I being too
picky?

Click to expand...