hp photosmart 7760 - Photo prints are suddenly greenish

[Poppy49]

There was a sudden, unexpected problem when I tried to print a few photos after returning from a vacation recently. I had printed photos with no problem only a few weeks prior. Now, there is an overall green cast to the printed photos. There are other colors present, including magenta & black, but the overall appearance is decidely greenish.

I've run the onboard cartridge cleaning program from the printer control panel several times with no change in results. Test   page prints show that light magenta (#58) is missing. So, I installed a new #58 cartridge. Installing a new cartridge didn't correct the problem.

I'm getting no error messages.

I'm running Windows XP Home Edition.

The most annoying aspect is that there is "normal", full-color printing on plain paper, yet a green cast to nearly everything with photo paper. The photo paper I'm using is 4" x 6"  HP Premium w/ tab.

Should I try a 3rd (2nd new) cartridge?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[Poppy49]

I was hoping for someone to respond and offer a suggestion by now.

Before I give up on this trusty little printer, please read my post above and offer any ideas you may have. Otherwise, I'm left with no alternative but to purchase a new printer while having a fair number of HP ink cartridges sitting on my shelf.

Thanks,

Poppy49

[Poppy49]

While I cannot figure how or why the #58 photo cartridge dried up and/or clogged so quickly, apparently that's what happened. My wife and I were on a 3-week trip, which is nothing new.

After a thorough cleaning of the interior of the machine in the cartridge bay area with foam brushes and filtered water didn't resolve the problem, a final new cartridge was installed with very pleasing results. The photo printing side is working perfectly again. I now surmise that only the tri-color #57 cartridge engages with plain paper, which is why a photo looked relatively normal when printed on plain paper, yet looked terrible (greenish) on photo paper. It appears that a clogged nozzle feeding the light magenta was the culprit.

I was ready to special-order a new Canon printer today. I'll give our trusty little hp photosmart 7760 a few more spins around the block first.

Thanks for the views. I hope that my posting might lead to some reduced anxieties and positive solutions for other members.