Unhappy with HP8450 graphic output

  • Thread starter Thread starter Sarah Feliz
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Sarah Feliz

I just bought the HP 8450, which has gotten rave reviews. It does in fact
print beautiful photos, and I love the speed, but I make a lot of greeting
cards on various kinds of paper. And in this area the HP 8450 is very
disappointing. Colors have a yellowish-orangish tint, especially when
printed on non-HP paper. I like to print on nonstandard paper (watercolor,
thicker papers, anything really). With my old HP895C I got incredibly good
results but that printer is now on its last legs.

I seem to have trouble especially when printing delicate transparencies,
that is, graphics with layers that have different transparency levels. The
printer seems to oversaturate and muddy the lines between the different
shades. On photo paper the results are much improved, but I don't want to
print these graphics on photo paper.

Any suggestions? Is there an HP out there that produces better results for
graphic files? Or should I ditch HP altogether and get something else (I
also want good text and photo output). And I don¹t' want to deal with
clogged printheads.

I have 12 days left to return the HP8450. If it continues not to measure up,
what should I get?

Thanks!
 
Are you using the printer's auto paper type detection system or setting the
printer driver for a specific paper type? The latter is advisable.

Also, if you want to print on matt paper, you should aim for coated fine art
ink jet papers. Ordinary uncoated papers will not reproduce colours well
because the ink gets spread out along the paper fibres at a microscopic
level - losing contrast, sharpness and saturation.

Also, don't go for papers that aren't flexible as they may jam your
printer - the paper has to do a 180 degree turn inside the printer and there
is no straight through paper path option for this printer.

Ian

http://dpnow.com
 
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