Question Printer Colors are Completely Wrong

[koberulz]

Print a Test Page Online - A Simple Printer Test Page

Print a test page online. This is a page for testing printers by the use of A4 Printer test pages. Simple and one-click printer testing

www.printatestpage.com

Canon G3630.

 

[Lutfij]

Canon G3630
What is the status of the ink levels

on all colors?

You've used the link above to help you print, what happens when you print a document off of your system's drive?

 

[koberulz]

What is the status of the ink levels on all colors?

They're all full, or near enough.

You've used the link above to help you print, what happens when you print a document off of your system's drive?

The same thing. I printed that page to try and figure out why other prints were looking off.

 

[Pimpom]

Looks like cyan and black are absent or nearly so. Maybe the print heads are clogged. Has the printer been lying unused for some time?

 

[koberulz]

If that were true, though, wouldn't those areas come out white?

 

[Pimpom]

I've analysed the sample page and it seems that the cyan area is not a true cyan. It's a mixture of cyan and magenta. That would explain why the area is printed as a pale magenta.

The dark blue areas, including the border scales, are also a mixture of cyan and magenta in different proportions and saturation, with a tiny bit of black. So they also come out as a different shade of magenta.

 

[koberulz]

And black? Even black and white prints are coming out orange.

 

[Pimpom]

As I said in my first reply, black is also absent in the printout. The "Black" in the "Black Background" area is medium grey. In the absence of black ink, it comes out as yet another shade of magenta with perhaps a bit of yellow.

As for white, the "Blank Background" area at the top of your printout looks virtually the same as the paper outside the print area.

 

[koberulz]

But why is the black coming out orange instead of invisible? Your contention is that everything has some amount of magenta and yellow in it, even when printing in black and white?

I'm also not sure why a touch of magenta in the blue would make it as saturated as it is. The whole thing just seems weird.

 

[USAFRet]

But why is the black coming out orange instead of invisible? Your contention is that everything has some amount of magenta and yellow in it, even when printing in black and white?

I'm also not sure why a touch of magenta in the blue would make it as saturated as it is. The whole thing just seems weird.

"black" is often a mix of colors, not just pure and only the black pigment.

 

[Pimpom]

I was typing a reply when USAFRet's post came in. He's right. Let me add a few details.

Colours are almost never pure in real life. Black, red, whatever. A blue sky is not pure blue. Green leaves are never pure green. There's always some subtle shade of other colours blended with the dominant one. So when the printer doesn't/can't apply the correct amounts of CMYK inks, the result is some weird shade.

That said, the "black" background in the digital image is a true gray, with Red, Green, Blue values of 178, 178, 178 in a 24-bit palette; CMYK values are 0, 0, 0, 30. In theory, the printout in the absence of black ink should be blank.

However - and I'm making an educated guess here - the printer driver's algorithm probably introduces other shades to compensate for the lack of a perfectly black shade in the black ink to make a rich black print.

 

[koberulz]

Surely if one prints in black and white (as in, selecting that in the printer settings, not just as in printing a source with no discernible color), only black ink is used?

 

[USAFRet]

Surely if one prints in black and white (as in, selecting that in the printer settings, not just as in printing a source with no discernible color), only black ink is used?

One would think so.

But that is often not the case.

https://www.epson.co.uk/en_GB/faq/KA-01507/contents?loc=en-us

 

[Ralston18]

How to make "black" (referencing @USAFRet, post #10).

https://blog.treasurie.com/how-to-make-the-color-black-what-colors-make-black/

For even more "color" information google "color wheels".

 

[Paperdoc]

I assure you that Pimpom's first post is correct. The Black and Cyan inks are missing completely, indicating blockages. Now having ALL jets of one colour blocked is uncommon but possible. In each case the other possibility is that the fine tube from the ink tank to the print head is clogged. The remedies depend a bit on what is wrong. But in practice there is a sequence of five possible fixes and you do them one at a time. Your best guide is a user and maintenance manual available here

https://www.canon.com.au/printers/pixma-g3630-megatank/support

On that page go to the middle and click on the little red arrow beside "Product Manual View On-line" to get this

https://ij.manual.canon/ij/webmanual/Manual/All/G3030 series/EN/CNT/Top.html

Scroll down a bit and click on the word Maintenance.
Click on Performing Maintenance Functions from the Printer.

Before you proceed, just a couple notes for background. The cleaning procedures work by forcing ink through the print head to soften and flush though any clogs. Each of the three steps uses up more ink, so for each stage you do the cleaning then print out a Nozzle Check page. If the result is perfect you stop there. If the result is good but slightly flawed you nay repeat that same cleaning procedure. If the result is still bad you go on the the next more thorough procedure. Every time you do one of these the printer has a Maintenance Cartridge that is used to capture the ink flushed through. This cartridge can become full and the printer has a system to monitor that and give you an error message if you need to replace the Maintenance Cartridge. You also need to be sure that the ink tanks are full before proceeding so that they do NOT run empty. All that is described in the manual.

So from that last menu click on the top one, "Maintenance Procedure". You can skip Steps 1 and 2 - you already know you have a problem - but you will come back to this when you test the result of a cleaning. Step 3 is the first cleaning level, then you do a Nozzle Check. Step 4 is a Deep Cleaning level if necessary, then another Nozzle Check. You may need to repeat after a day. If the print still is not fixed you use Step 5 for a big flush.

If even those processes do not solve the problem. follow the remaining procedures to "Check Installation of Print Head", which includes removing the heads and cleaning them with a damp cloth and cleaning the head carriage area, then another first-level Head Clean and Nozzle Check, If even that fails, the last option is to replace the print head. I believe this printer actually has two print heads - one for black only and another for the three colours. You would hope to need replacement only for the one that is not working, but that MIGHT be both in your case.