Canon ipf8400 subtle banding on flat color areas

[Swang2015]

Hi,

We just set up a new printer and were doing some test prints. I noticed some subtle bands of color about 1/2" wide on large areas of solid color when we print at 300 dpi. It is only really noticeable when you have a flat area of color. This is on the paper that came witht he machine. I think it is Canon Heavyweight Coated Paper. The bands are slightly different tones like lighter-darker-lighter-darker. It's as if the printer is causing the ink to change color a little as it prints and feeds out of the machine. We tried adjusting some settings and were able to lessen the shifts in tone, but we still get a darker fine line between the bands. Has anyone else ever had this problem? The nozzle check pattern comes out fine.

When I tried printing at 600 dpi setting it seems much better. If I look really closely I can still see some slight banding and the bands are only about 1/8" thick at 600 dpi. But it is still kind of there.

Does anyone have any advice? Is there something faulty or is there an adjustment we can make? Thanks for your advice.

[aaronchan]

When you say you printed with 300dpi, do you mean you have set the drive to print 300dpi x 300dpi?
As I remember, 300 x 300dpi is the lowest setting for this printer.
Which mean you are most likely 1 pass printing.

To fix this problem which I think it's pretty normal, you can try to do feed adjustmnt from your printer control panel

aaron

[Swang2015]

Hi! Thanks for you response. When I say 300 dpi, I mean that in the print driver, in the pull down menu I chose the 300 dpi setting. I think the other choices are 600 dpi and 600dpi(Highest). I also unchecked the box for "faster" print in the print driver. Also tried checking "Uni-directional". Those things didn't seem to make a difference.

I did try adjusting the feeder adjustment in the control panel. I selected "Print Quality" for Feeder Priority because from the manual it seems like that is saying that you want better print quality versus faster print speed? But this didn't seem to make a difference.

Do you get this when you print at 300 dpi?

[bill t.]

Have you run a second printer calibration with that paper?  Maybe there was some issue with dust or contamination in the paper advance on the installation calibration.  Did you get an error message after the initial calibration during installation?

Before that run a head check print.  That's an extremely sharp printing paper, so the tiniest errors are noticeable.  Is some specific color range giving you a problem?  Have you tested with your production media?

It's possible the clear embalming fluid that was in the system and the packaged heads may still slightly be contaminating some colors and the problem will go away with use.

Call Canon tech support.  If have found the US phone support to be incredibly helpful.

Have not seen that on my high mileage 8300 looking very close at recent 600 DPI prints on smooth glossy media.

[Swang2015]

Hi Bill, Thanks for your suggestions. I will try the additional test prints and also try calling tech support.

It is on all colors - not just one color range. And it is mostly on 300dpi setting. At 600 dpi it is still there but I have to look really hard and close to see it. But at 300 dpi I can see the banding if I am a few feet away. I tried a different paper. I tried the Epson Lustre paper which is the paper I would like to use and it actually is less noticeable on the Epson paper but still there. The person who helped me install it said he will try making an adjustment to the print head.

[jtunney]

Did you ever solve the banding problem? I've run into recently and have been through the obvious steps, including new print heads. The bands don't appear at the Highest setting, but they really shouldn't be there at all.

Thanks.

John

[BobShaw]

Even 600DPI is not high. The usual is 1400 or 2800 dots per inch. You are thinking of PPI or pixels per inch which is related to file size. The usual cause of banding is a lack of tonal range.