Printing problems, help!

[TeeTee]

First some basics. Printer is a Canon Pixma IP5200R. Laptop is a Macbook Pro. Photos are printed via Lightroom & PS CS3.

My problem is that on all my prints on photo paper I get consistent horizontal lines along my print. They're not noticable at first glance, but after looking for more than a second they look blatantly obvious. I thought it was nozzle alignment or something, but the printer prints beautifully using directprint from the camera. The lines make it seem like the printer only did 10 passes on the print and the passes were a bit too far apart with this odd discolouration in the form of lines repeated throughout the print resulted. I'm clueless!

It doesn't help that the colour is completely off either. I'm having a hell of a time using this thing. Any assistance? :(

[René Damkot]

On the lines: No idea. (since Direct print seems to work okay)
On the color: Have a read in the link from my sig.

[canonpink]

I have seen those same lines on my Canon i9900. What I do is print in draft mode a color chart on cheap copy paper each day to ensure the ink on the print heads never gets dry. I began doing this after reading about how a little maintenance keeps your printer head from clogging and your prints perfect on demand. What you probably need to do is run deep cleaning, or just cleaning if that is all your printer driver can do, a couple times until the lines are gone. This may require as little as 2 times, or as much as 5 times and uses a lot of ink; but if you care about getting rid of the lines, this is the only way to go without removing the print head. Additionally, if you have the choice to print in quiet mode, this is better for better prints.

Let us know how it goes.

[TeeTee]

The colour problems are getting solved as I go along, that's just because I'm new to printing. No worries on that bit.

On the 'lines' front however, after printing in A4 size the lines are less noticable but still there. Printing at 4x6 makes them blatantly obvious.

Still very confused, as it prints GREAT directly from the camera. Any time my laptop is involved it all goes to crap. :(