Colorlaserjet 5550dtn print quality

[chetbar]

Color Laserjet 5550dtn

The print quality is very poor, fading across the image, solids don't print evenly and colour photo's are unacceptable.

Many hours have been spent with the settings trying to get a decent print.

But if I print from the built in Demo page the the print quality and colour are excellent and much better than I would expect as the cartridges are not OEM.

It makes no difference whether I use PDF,  jpeg, psd, Indesign, MS Word or tiff - the quality is nothing like the built in images.

What are the requirements for my documents to print with the same quality as the Demo page?

[Repairatrooper · Accepted solution]

First make sure that your original has good resolution. File type will make no difference if the content is low quality. Have you tried printing with some stock high resolution images as a baseline? If you print the color swatch (about 15 pages) do all the colors look consistent. You could have one marginal cartridge and it might not show on the demo but your prints might use one color more heavily and if that cartridge is marginal then it will affect your output.

[chetbar]

Thanks for that, I've had this printer so long that I had forgotten the basics!
I printed out the colour swatches in RGB & CMYK as suggested and this showed up a fault in the cyan cartridge with fine lines running head to foot (landscape) and the black cartridge is uneven and has banding. As they are not OEM cartridges that is down to me.
What is the resolution of the built in demonstration page? I cannot find any reference to it in the manual.