Banding on photos printed with Epson ET-7700

[AndrewJ]

Hello - I have just started seeing some irritating banding on colour photographs printed on Epson Premium Glossy Paper. This is particularly obvious in the black regions of astronomical photos taken of the night sky through my telescope. I have been using this printer and paper successfully for the printing of astro photos for years. So this is a new problem.

Normal colour photos printed on the paper appear more or less fine - suggesting this problem is something to do with the photo black ink. This problem is much less evident if I print to plain paper, which I suspect does not use the photo black ink. All other standard office type printing is absolutely fine. It's just photos that are a problem.

I have done the following to try and remedy the problem: nozzle check, print head alignment, head cleaning, power cleaning (twice), topped up ink. I have also un-installed all Epson software and drivers and then re-installed them.

I am on an M3 MacBook running Sequoia 15.3.2

Obviously this printer is quite old now. I bought it over five years ago. I am just wondering if it's reached the end of life - at least as a photo printer for the purpose I use it ie astronomy photos which contain a lot of black.

Any further suggestions anyone?

 

[AndrewJ]

It might be useful to show the problem. The first is a scan of a printed photograph and the second is the original photo. The object is the California Nebula in case you're wondering.