What can I do about a week-old Lexmark Z52 that’s already exhibiting some really unsightly banding on every print? Our I.S. is know familiarly as “the helpless desk,” so there’s no help there. Any suggestions, anyone?
Thanks.
You will have to be a LOT more specific. What type of images are showing banding? What programs are you using?
Sometimes banding occurs becuause your printer does not have the ability to represent all 256 levels of each color (CMYK). But in most cases, it is because the designer goofed up. It is easy to spread too few levels of color across too many inches of the print, causing banding. I have a little calculator (mac only) that tells you how to set up color gradations in programs like Adobe Illustrator, to minimize bands.
Actually, I have to be a lot more accurate: it’s not a laser printer, it’s an inkjet (what a cheesy little machine!).
And what you’re talking about is dithering, not banding. The banding I’m talking about is strictly an artifact of the printer, and has nothing to do with the originating software. Every time the little jets make a pass over the paper, they leave evidence of their path. The paper’s advancing a molecule’s width too far with each pass, or something. It’s really stoopid and it’s really pissing me off.