Thin vertical lines when printing photos

[aajax]

The referenced printer was doing a fabulous job at printing photographs.  In this case, the printer is fairly new and has just recently recently consummed the original cartridges when it was decided to try using it for photo printing.  Therefore, the fabulous results were obtained on relatively new cartridges and consisted of printing at least a dozen pictures of different sizes.  Then all of a sudden these thin vertical straight lines began to appear in the printouts.  They are evenly spaced across the full image.  In that they only appear within the printed image.  When using letter (8.5 x 11) size paper to print a picture cropped to 8 x 10 using landscape orientation the spacing is approximately 1 1/8 (one and one eighth) inches or 8 evenly spaced vertical lines.  Sort of like the picture has been divided into 8 columns.

According to the printer's built in ink gauge the cartridges are now just a bit more than half full.

These lines are sufficiently narrow that they are not very apparent when printing on plain (copy) paper.  They probably would be unnoticeable on many kinds of printouts.  However, they become quite noticeable and objectionable when using good quality (HP in this case) photo paper to print photos.

Absent a resolution the printer is no good for photo printing.

[aajax · Accepted solution]

Further troubleshooting suggests that the problem is not attributable to the printer but rather to the software used to perform the printing. This was not immediately evident as I've only printed photos using Picasa and it had worked great and then all of a sudden the problem developed. However, I've now tried printing the same pictures with other software and there is no problem when doing so.

Also the Picasa forum has lots of posts which look to be either the same or a similar problem to what I experienced. Unfortunately, there does not appear to be any explanation for a repeatable cause nor a specific solution. Some hacking around with settings and options seems to be in order. If this fails then printing with other software may be necessary.

[alrprairie]

I had the same problem with a new 8610 printer.  These lines appeared when using Sony's Play Memories and just selecting a picture from file explorer in Windows 8.1.  I went to Photoshop Elements 11 and printed pictures that the thin vertical did not appear.  Thank you for this thread, very helpful and problem solved.  Hopefully no problems when going to Windows 10!

[Joemanog]

Well, about the same with me. Lines appear when printing photos with hp deskjet 3520, hp photo paper and original cartridges. 

After spending  a lot of time  in test pages, ink heads cleaning, a lot of paper, finally found a resolution. Like you said it was a software problem.

I was using windows 7 and windows photo viewer for printing my photos. Lines and stripes appeared with an overall bad image quality.

So i tryed with microsoft office photo editor (basic one) and all defects appartely gone.

Cant understand how that is possible but thanks a lot for your post and help.

[SRChaney]

I just purchased the 5741 and am having the same problem.  I am using the HP Photo Creations program.

[Moonlightflower]

I have been using HP photo paper for years and the same HP printer with the same software I use to edit my photos. The cameras I use are Nkons...one Nikon D3100 and one Nikoon D3300 and one Nikon P500 CoolPix and one Nikon CoolPix 3300. The majority of my photos are taken with the Nikon D3300. They are there fine ines in the photos and in the copy paper prints. It is mst annoying, esp if I want to sell any of the photos I can print at home. I use only HP ink. Maybe I need to use my backup printer we take on trips. It's it not an HP. I've used only HP printers since 2001.

You may view the image here that I have been trying to print. 

moonlightflower.org  forward slash  Dsc_0255-Watermarked2.jpg

[Robdan]

My HP OfficeJet Pro 8720 was purchased in September 2016 and is now about 1-1/2 years old.  I also have a LaserJet printer which I use for everyday printing and only use the 8720 for printing color graphics and photos.  I generally print less than 50 pages per month and the total page count on the inkjet is only 565 pages, virtually still new.  Out of the box, it printed everything flawlessly, but recently while printing an 8”x 10” photo, in the NORMAL setting, it developed unwanted extra parallel lines, rendering the print unacceptable.  In an attempt to fix the problem, I ran a printhead cleaning and alignment routine, but neither one helped.  I also checked my firmware to be sure it was up to date and ran a print quality diagnostic page, as previously suggested.  The diagnostic page came out clean, but the lines were still present on every photo I printed, both on inkjet copy paper and Epson Premium Glossy Photo paper.

Since the printer is of no use to me in this condition, I bit my lip and called HP Support on their chat line.  After spending almost 2-1/2 hours with an inexperienced overseas agent, and allowing him to remote into my computer, it was all for naught.  All he could tell me was 1) I should use HP Photo paper, 2) My printer was past the 1 year warranty, 3) He could send me a refurbished exchange printer for $212, 4) He could do nothing to fix the unwanted lines from my print jobs …a total waste of my time!

Totally frustrated, I called my son, and IT Professional and discussed the problem with him in detail.  Long story short, he suggested that I try printing my photos in the BEST print quality, instead of the NORMAL setting.  To my surprise, the extra lines disappeared.  He couldn’t explain why it had been printing well in NORMAL prior to now, but until I had a better solution, printing my photos in BEST quality was my fix.  This is also what EranP had concluded back in Jan 2017.

After dwelling on this overnight, and reading some other blogs on the Support Forum, it seemed like the problem was either software related or a problem with the printhead, as HP Support agent Sizzlingsum_13 had suggested.  I previously replaced a printhead on my old HP 6500 inkjet printer, so I decided to take a look at this printhead to see if I could see anything.  I removed all the ink cartridges, which looked okay, and then pulled the printhead …an easy job.  The printhead design was very different from the HP 6500, but identical to remove.  What I found as a very small amount of dried ink had accumulated at one end of the printing surface on the printhead.  I used a dry Q-tip and carefully removed all the dried ink, then reinstalled the printhead and ink cartridges.  I then ran another printhead alignment, prior to printing photos.  When I tried printing the exact same photo (that had the lines in it) again in NORMAL mode, the print was PERFECT; NO LINES!.  I did this twice with another photo file and again, it was perfect!  My theory is that this dry ink buildup would wipe the ink, one pixel wide, on each successive print pass, thus causing horizontal lines every 1.25” apart.  Removing the dried ink solved my problem!  PROBLEM RESOLVED.