Epson P600 colour banding

[kalanka]

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I am new to colour printing.  I have been getting good results from an Epson P600 used with Photos on Mac Mojave and an M9 with 21, 35,50 and 90 but recently some images are printing with pale blue banding.  Each band is about 3mm wide and spaced at about 8mm.  Some A4 and A3 images print perfectly but the next one will then be heavily banded across the image.

This makes me think the problem may be related to the file and its processing rather than the ink cartridges - but of course I may be wrong.

Can anyone give advice?

Thanks

 

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[franco1952]

Provare ad allineare le testine di stampa

[Jean-Michel]

First, use your Epson utility check the printer. 

[Graham (G4FUJ)]

Looks like a printer / print head fault to me.

I've serviced enough (earlier models) over the years.  However, as Jean-Michel wrote, use the Epson utilities to check.

 

[adan]

Alternatively, use the printer's on-board touchscreen control panel to run a printer head check. Setup > Maintenance > Print Head Nozzle Check. Load a piece of plain letter/A4 paper in the printer and touch the "Print" button in that mode to get a sample pattern showing the output of each of the 180 nozzles per color.

What I'm seeing in your sample is not "pale blue" banding, but "lack of pale blue" banding. The bands are stronger where the color to be printed is blue-ish, which means some of your cyan or light-cyan print head nozzles (pin-holes that spray the ink) may be clogged with dried ink, leaving pale under-inked bands. Which is the most common cause of stripes or bands.

While that is not a "file" problem, it will appear or disappear depending on the colors in the picture being printed. If it is a cyan clog, it won't show up as much in reds, yellows and reddish-yellow "neutrals" (grays and beiges).

Edited December 25, 2018 by adan