S9000 Problem ????

[jpmotdyn]

I have a Canon S9000. When i print pictures through Photorecord on Canon photo paper pro, they come out fine. BUT when i try to print a website, picture or email message on any other paper i get this severe banding or horizontal lines about half an inch wide throughout the whole thing. They vary in color some even looking fuzzy. I tried aligining and deep cleaning. Could it be the printhead or as another person said it could be the circuit or the brain of the printer. All help is appreciated. Thank You

[soumya63]

Sounds like software problem. Change the photo printing software and try printing directly from your browser.

Remember, you will never get quality printout in normal paper. This is a photo printer and it shines only with correct Photo papers.

I have tried many photo papers and found it works best with Canon and Epson Paper. Never try Kodaks Premium paper (they are available at bargain price in Costco) with S9000, as this paper exhibits ink pooling with Canon ink.

[jpmotdyn]

Tried using dfferent software and drivers. No luck. The banding is pretty serious on the paper. Not minor but 1/4 inch strips all the way across the page in different colors. I wish i had a scanner so i could post a pic of my problem. thanks for the help though

[soumya63]

Banding can be caused by misalignment of head. You said that your printer is printing fine all the photographs with no banding, so alignment may not be an issue. But it may require some fine tuning in the double pass that is in draft mode. Have you tried the head align option in Canon 9000 driver?

PS: Instead of scanner, You may try your digital camera in macro mode :-)

[Rudi]

A good friend of mine is now on his 6th (!!!) S9000 printer, and still gets banding (in his photos as well!). It is an ongoing issue and I expect that he will eventually give up on Canon printers. It is a pity, because the S9000 would be a great printer if it worked as advertised... :(

This was just one of the reasons why I went with the Epson 1290 for my A3 photo printer... (I had an Epson previously and was very happy with the output, so I decided to stay with what I know :))

[soumya63]

6th S9000! Can't belive my eyes. If this printer has that poor quality then no wonder people will go for slower, noisier and bit lower resolution Epson 1290.

I think something was grossly wrong as 6 brand new Canon printers can not have the exact same banding problem. I am a long happy user of S800, and it works like a charm. S9000 is a generation higher than my S800 and it is difficult to believe Canon will release such an useless product in the market.

I have no direct experience with S9000, so I can not comment more, but from my 15 years experience in IT, I have seen countless time end users blame hardware for some fault in the software.

[Rudi]

Ummmm, no, becasue the printer that Canon had in their HQ in Sydney, and were using for their printing, had exactly the same problem! It was actually one of the printers that my mate tried in his desperation to end up with a good one!

The ball's in Canon's court for the moment, but in the meantime, I am very happy with my Epson 1290, which shows NO banding! My mate was suitably impressed with the oputput as well, and it has spurred him on to pressure Canon a bit harder to get some resolution to this matter.

BTW, Canon redesigned the printer head between the S800 and S900 (and obviously, S9000). Not only is it wider, with more nozzles, they changed the position of the black ink nozzles in an attempt to take advantage of the different drying times between the different ink colours, and keep the printing speed high as a result. This could be why some users report banding problems with the S900(0) series printers...

[boBquincy]

If your S9000 prints fine from one program and not so well from another program, there is nothing wrong that cleaning & aligning will correct. It could be the resolution of the file that one program is sending the printer.

I have a S9000 and it prints extremely well, no banding, no artifacts. The S9000 is good enough that I have stopped printing with Cibachrome. I use Office Depot glossy for everyday prints and Ilford Galerie for fine prints.
As another poster noted, Kodak paper does not work well with the S9000.

boB

[Rudi]

It's not the paper (using Canon Photo Paper Pro), it's not the inks (using genuine Canon inks), and it's not the programs (tried several). Even Canon staff could not print a photo without banding. I have yet to see ONE S9- series Canon printer print my test photo without banding! Some come close, but no cigar!

You won't see the banding in a busy photo! It's the smooth ares such as skin and sky where it becomes obvious! My mate's high-res film scans have enough grain to effectively mask the banding, but a clean digital file will always show it!

I have even had Gorham (from this forum) mail me some examples from his printer. While it was *much* better than my mate's printer, the banding was still there! So, I'll say it again: "I have yet to see ONE S9- series Canon printer print my test photo without banding."

[Morden]

I have only once experienced banding such as you describe on my S9000, and that was the first photograph that I printed using it. I performed the 'deep cleaning' operation, and everything has been fine since then. I have, just moments ago, printed a low quality web picture at A4 size on plain paper, just to make sure.

Perhaps I have been very lucky!

Neil D.

[Rudi]

Apparently there *are* printers out there that are acceptable (I'm loath to say: "good" for obvious reasons). The problem is, I've heard of some printers developing the problem as they get older, and for my money, I decided not to risk it.

I'm sure (I hope?) the majority of Canon S900(0) buyers are happy with their purchase. And I also know for a fact that there are lots of people who would never buy an Epson printer again. :)

My personal experience just favours the Epson. I wanted to buy the Canon (so bad!) for the speed, but, in the end I was not prepared to sacrifice print quality for speed... I can only go on personal experience, and mine (well, my friend's) has been negative as far as the Canon S9000 is concerned. :(

[Morden]

I'm sorry that you and your friend have had such negative experiences with the S9000. Prior to purchasing this printer, I had stuck to Epson models; the quality of output was excellent and I could live with the slow (relative) speed. In fact, I ordered an Epson 2100, but subsequently learned that that particular model was 'phantomware' - it did not really yet exist. I then moved on to the Canon S9000.

I must say that I am, overall, very pleased with the S9000. Best of all - when compared to my Epson 1270 - is the sheer speed of the S9000. As 'they' say, time is money! And I have not yet seen any drop in quality. Actually, output from the S9000 is at least as good as that from the 1270.

Neil D.

[davidwalton]

This banding problem is something I have never seen with mine!

I checked a few A3 photo prints just now, with clear blue sky, or similar solid areas of color and ZERO banding (even whith my glasses on)

The S9000 I have is the best printer I have had and am very happy with the results.

I only use the S9000 for printing photos. Everything else is printed on my HP printer.

Those of you with this banding problem, I hope you get it sorted.

[Andy Somnifac]

Something certainly seems odd with 6 printers exhibiting the same problem... I've owned only Canon printers for several years now and have loved them. I have my S600 for general purpose printer and it's great, and I have access to a S9000 here at work. Banding has never been an issue that a good head cleaning hasn't been able to fix, even in huge solid areas of black. If banding were an issue, it should have showen up in this picture: http://www.somnifacient.us/takeover/images/takeover02.jpg . That's lots of solid black, and banding would have jumped out and bit me. There's now a 13"x19" of that on my wall and it looks great.

Andy Somnifac

[Rudi]

Well, here we go - this is now my standard test print to check for banding. It's where we first discovered it. It's my mate's daughter. I call this photo "contemplation"...:

http://www.users.bigpond.com/ruda/0001/img0150_std.jpg

Now, ignoring the obvious compression artefacts (it's lifted from my web site, and is NOT supposed to print too well), I have yet to see ONE print from a S900/S9000 that shows absolutely no banding in the skin/background areas. Sometimes it's very subtle, but under strong illumination it still shows up. There is NO such banding from the same file printed on my Epson 1290!

If anyone wants a large max quality JPEG (*for the purposes of this test only*), I can arrange to have one emailed to you (away on business at the moment). But first, just try and print a 4x6 or smaller of this file and see... :)