Banding on Inkjet Prints

[roebuck]

I am using an Epson Photo 810 to print this image and I am getting some light banding in the sky areas and not getting it on any other images. To eliminate I have reset the print head alignment and applied neat image to the sky region (image was shot on a 300D at 400 ISO) all to no avail.
Does anyone have any ideas as to get rid of them. I am attaching the original and two uncorrected scans of the printed image I hope you can see what I mean.

Thanks

[kb244]

Your printer needs an alignment, banding occurs when the heads are misaligned, just do a head alignment and should fix the problem. But far as I can tell alignment the only way to get rid of them, oddly enough should only have to do this once ( when you get the printer for the first time and maybe several months down the road ). By the way, banding in the sky, ( first pic ) are you saying thats in the picture itself? Also it might just be an issue of dynamic range if yer talking about the horizontal patches.

[gary_hendricks]

It's a printer head problem, as mentioned above.

[steven]

My printer manual (Epson 2200) mentions cleaning the print heads as a possible solution to banding.
Have you tried simply cleaning the print heads?

[Bodog]

Is the original file a jpeg? How much was it compressed? Since this is not showing up in other prints, I'm suspecting that may be the problem. This is the first place jpeg artifacts would start to show. You may not be able to pick it up on your monitor.

[roebuck]

Many thanks to you all for the responses.

Although I did do a test print of the heads and a print head alignment and they both showed no problems I will go back and try the print head alignment again as it was a close call to which number to choose last time.

It's just rather furstrating when it only shows on 17 x 26 cm prints and not on the 10 x 15 cm test prints (of the larger image) maybe a larger test print next time.

Cheers
Michael

PS: The original was a RAW file.