Canon MP480 prints too light

Question

Canon MP480 prints too light

I bought a Canon MP480 printer from Apple with my MacBook Pro in 2008. Have used happily for text. Now trying to print pictures (from my iMac) - they all come out way too light, whether using Aperture or Preview. By contrast my old HP3100 works fine, with the same pictures. I've tried changing the rendering options, also the intensity and saturation. My driver version is 10.30.3.0; driver url is: usb://Canon/MP480%20series?serial=92E924

Hope someone can help. Sure this at least USED to print photos, how could Apple have sold them otherwise??

iMac 27", Mac OS X (10.6.5)

Posted on Dec 12, 2010 4:17 PM

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Answer 1

PAHU

Level 6

16,723 points

Dec 12, 2010 4:51 PM in response to Charlie in NEK

Have you tried printing a nozzle check to ensure all the colours are working correctly. This can be accessed via Options & Supplies > Utility > Open Printer Utility.

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Answer 2

Dec 13, 2010 5:22 PM in response to PAHU

Thanks for the suggestion!
But alas, have now tried this and the nozzle check looks fine. No gaps at all, looks just like the "good" example. And text printout from Preview, Pages, etc. is fine. It's only pictures that look light.

So it doesn't seem like a problem with the physical printer.

Any other thoughts?

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Answer 3

PAHU

Level 6

16,723 points

Dec 13, 2010 9:08 PM in response to Charlie in NEK

Okay, thanks for that feedback.

Are you printing the pictures on plain paper? If so, have you tried with photo paper? I mention this because image printing is profiled with using photo paper stocks. If the picture still prints light when using photo paper, and with photo paper selected in Quality & Media as well as high print quality, then you could have a problem with the profiles for the MP480.

But if the quality is good on photo paper and it is just an issue with images in a Pages document or PDF then this could well be a limitation of this model. Looking at the specs it only has a single colour cartridge. Many of the newer models have an additional black that is used with the 3 colours to improve the colour output. But even then the colours don't look as bright on plain paper as they do on photo.

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Answer 4

Dec 14, 2010 9:50 AM in response to PAHU

Sorry I did not make this clear in the original post. I have been trying on photo paper, both "HP Everyday" and "HP Premium Plus".

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Answer 5

PAHU

Level 6

16,723 points

Dec 14, 2010 12:06 PM in response to Charlie in NEK

Well then this could be a limitation of this model. I don't do a lot of photo printing but when I have the photos on my Canon's have looked vibrant. But then I also use Canon photo papers so not sure how much of an influence that would have on the result.

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Answer 6

Dec 15, 2010 9:14 AM in response to Charlie in NEK

Well, the plot thickens, I guess. After loading the new printer driver yesterday I got a pretty decent result printing from Preview using the MP480 GL1/GL2 Colorsync profile. But Aperture still displays the same problem, even when I select that profile.

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