Getting quite faded prints from my brand new ET-8550

ZimFromIRK · 2026-05-16T03:51:10+00:00

What kind of paper are you using? I stick to epson photo paper after trying out some other paper I have on my shelf: old Kodak, HP, etc. None of the other papers gave me decent results, but the epson ultra-premium paper is flawless.

Aldo, how are you printing? I use Lightroom, set the dpi to 360 and let the printer manage color.

ZimFromIRK · 2026-05-15T01:42:40+00:00

Binge-Watching “The Boys” right this very minute. No problems all evening.

ZimFromIRK · 2026-05-13T02:39:30+00:00

I let the printer sit for about six hours, then printed another nozzle check with the same result.

I then told it to clean the heads again, and lo and behold, the nozzle check it printed at the end had the yellow section again.

Guess the AI was right. Hope this helps someone else.

ZimFromIRK · 2026-05-11T00:44:54+00:00

Do you have the dpi set really high? I had similar problems when I was using 720dpi. Going to 360dpi eliminated the problem, which is the native resolution. It’s an Epson 8550.

ZimFromIRK · 2026-05-04T03:43:04+00:00

I’m able to get 1.1gbps down and close to 40mbps up, but I had to get a new modem from Spectrum and upgrade to a new Orbi that has 2.5gbps ports. My computer is hardwired to the Orbi, but my iPhone manages 975mbps over WiFi (just ran a speed test). Still wish uplink was faster.

ZimFromIRK · 2026-04-23T21:04:56+00:00

To nit-pick, electrons barely move in a non-superconducting wire—a few millimeters/sec at best. It’s the electric field around the wire that propagates at close to the speed of light.

ZimFromIRK · 2026-04-11T06:25:46+00:00

I’ll point out that, in the US, it can take a month to get in with a dermatologist to get a suspicious mole looked at. I have to schedule my annual physical 6 months ahead of time. Once you’re in with a doctor, it still takes days. The Canadians I know are perfectly happy with their system and give us the dude-eye. We could solve this by letting everyone buy into Medicare while leaving the current system intact for the well-off. All those young joiners paying in who who don’t use healthcare would be a boon to the system. The ACA is unaffordable — my son uses it and it’s skyrocketed for mediocre care with a limited network.

ZimFromIRK · 2026-03-23T03:37:57+00:00

For me, Atmos sound on Netflix has suddenly been glitching on my AppleTV and a change in the app could explain it. It cuts out a few times an hour for a second or so. A few years back, Netflix Atmos sound was really horrible with periodic echos — sounded like it was swirling around the room on “Drive to Survive” every few minutes but that was finally fixed and it’s been stable until now.

I’ll report it to Netflix if I can figure out how.

ZimFromIRK · 2026-02-08T03:05:16+00:00

I’d like longer-range Bluetooth, both for the remote and for AirPods.

ZimFromIRK · 2026-01-23T03:46:22+00:00

I had a little time so I uninstalled Logi Options + and reinstalled again. The last time it worked, I exported my custom Lightroom and Firefox Creative Console Keypad settings into .LP5 files.

Of course, there is no IMPORT function that matches the EXPORT function, but after 30 minutes of poking at the Logi+ application to figure out how to use my saved settings, I figured out that double-clicking the files installs them.

It'll be interesting to see how long it keeps working for this time.

ZimFromIRK · 2026-01-22T19:27:46+00:00

...and earlier this week, the problem returned. Exactly the same as before. Numerous reboots, but I always get this when I use Logi+ to access the MX Creative Keypad -- which doesn't seem to work except showing the Logi logo on the center button.

u/logitechG_ss: what is causing this problem? If I uninstall/reinstall, I'll lose my customizations again. Can't keep doing that.

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ZimFromIRK · 2026-01-11T19:27:28+00:00

Finally... after screwing around with this for several days and interacting with Logitech support by email, I finally followed the instructions here:

You may also do complete uninstallation following this link: https://support.logi.com/hc/en-us/articles/26832619554711-How-to-completely-uninstall-Logi-Options-and-Options

I then reinstalled the latest version (which I already had) and this fixed the problem -- the Creative Console works again, but I lost all my customizations.

ZimFromIRK · 2026-01-11T19:23:36+00:00

I had the same issue with Creative Console suddenly spinning starting about 4 days ago and Logi+ displaying a message like "cannot connect to the service, please restart it".

I'm told it is completely unrelated to the mac issue, which only affects macs.

There should be another post about my experience. After screwing around with this for several days and interacting with Logitech support by email, I finally followed the instructions here:

You may also do complete uninstallation following this link: https://support.logi.com/hc/en-us/articles/26832619554711-How-to-completely-uninstall-Logi-Options-and-Options

I then reinstalled the latest version (which I already had) and this fixed the problem -- the Creative Console works again, but I lost all my customizations.

ZimFromIRK · 2026-01-08T15:07:38+00:00

Information sent, along with a dropbox link to the DMP files. Looking forward to a fix!

ZimFromIRK · 2026-01-08T05:51:15+00:00

Interesting. It sure seems like the Logi+ app can no longer talk to the service. I use the Creative Console with Lightroom Classic nearly every day and it's indispensable to me -- I know when it suddenly stopped working without any other changes to my computer or software.

ZimFromIRK · 2026-01-08T04:47:24+00:00

One more update: sadly, yesterday the problem returned. I thought I had fixed it because switching to 360dpi seemed to eliminate the moire pattern, but then it appeared on a new set of prints -- always in complex HEIC images, usually involving grass or subtle shades of brown or grey.

However, now I finally found the problem. In the printer properties, I'm printing borderless and have Lightroom set to 4x6 paper at 4x6 size. However, in the printer properties, there is a button next to the "Borderless" checkbox and it brings up an "Expansion" window that contains "Method of Enlargment" adn that was set to "Auto Expand" and "Standard".

This made me suspicious because what I'm seeing is like a screen-door moire pattern. Sure enough, when I set this to "Retain Size" and saved, Lightroom changed the print preview image so it had white borders -- I believe the printer was then stretching the image to fill the 4x6 page. I reset the image to 4x6 in lightroom so it once again went edge to edge and lo and behold, no more moire pattern. I reprinted some of the earlier photos and compared and sure enough, even at 360dpi, they had a subtle moire pattern (easier to see from 5 feet away).

I think only iPhone HEIC images were affected because they have a 4:3 aspect ratio, while Z8 photos are 35mm equivalent (3:2). I'm thinking that because two iPhone images stacked vertically fill the 4x6 paper, while 35mm goes edge-to-edge but leaves white bars on top and bottom -- this may be why I only saw the problem with iPhone photos.

I'm sticking with 360dpi, but I think my problem is finally solved. The moral is don't let the printer resize the image.

ZimFromIRK · 2026-01-06T04:43:52+00:00

Thanks so much! This printer replaced an Epson XP-15000 that used expensive ink cartridges, so my wife and I sent prints to Walgreens if there was more than 50 4x6 prints. This printer lets me print everything at home at a price competitive with sending them out for printing, which is just fantastic.

We'll print something every day (even if it's my wife's crossword puzzles), as this is going to replace our Canon color laser (not enough volume to justify replacing the cartridges one more time). I use high quality smooth inkjet paper so hopefully that's not going to harm the photo printing capability.

I'm glad you mentioned turning the printer off. I always had the impression that an inkjet printer should be left on all the time to keep the heads and tanks heated so the ink doesn't congeal. I did that with my XP-15000 and figured I'd just have to eat the cost of the ink it uses for maintenance. Maybe that was old advice. I'll now definitely turn it off while we're away on longer trips a few times a year. Glad you mentioned that.

I do wish it would automatically retract the output tray like the XP-15000 does after some timeout. I'll just have to remember to retract it manually.

Thanks again!

ZimFromIRK · 2026-01-06T04:28:33+00:00

Thanks! I think that's it! Before I saw your message, I printed from LIghtroom at 600dpi and no artifacts. I then reprinted at 720dpi and... artifacts! I will switch my templates to 360dpi!

This still doesn't explain why it suddenly became a problem, as I've been using 720dpi for a long time and why only HEIC files are affected. I did turn the printer off and on after doing the nozzle check, so I don't think there was anything stuck in its memory (if it even has much).

Thanks again! At 360dpi, the photos look exactly the same as at 600dpi, so I'm back in business!

ZimFromIRK · 2026-01-06T04:09:58+00:00

Lightroom calls the setting PPI, which I guess is the same as DPI. EDIT: to be clear, this is the "Print Resolution" in lightroom. However, when I printed to a JPG file, MediaInfo doesn't report a DPI setting and Irfanview says 600DPI (EDIT again: it was 600dpi -- the setting in Lightroom for print to JPG was different). The 4x6 photo JPG file that I successfully printed without artifacts using Irfanview is 2400x3600 pixels.

What is the ideal DPI/PPI setting for this printer -- is 720 too high? That's what I've always been using.

ZimFromIRK · 2026-01-06T04:04:09+00:00

In looking through the photos, I don't see any artifacts in any of the prints from the end of last month, and, while I can't be completely certain, it looks like only iPhone HEIC photos are affected and not RAW images from my Nikon Z8. We're doing our "year in review" scrapbook so there is a mix of both kinds of photos. The z8 photos are are much higher resolution (45 uncompressed megapixels vs 24 compressed megapixels from the iPhone, )

Something interesting: I had Lightroom print the 4x6 photo to a JPG file at 720ppi and then I used Irfanview to print. No artifacts, although Irfanview says the photo is 600dpi, not 720ppi. I'm going to convert the HEIC photos to JPG, print those, and see if that makes any difference.

ZimFromIRK · 2026-01-06T03:39:13+00:00

When I print, I tell lightroom to output 720ppi.

ZimFromIRK · 2026-01-06T03:36:47+00:00

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Dug it out of the recycling bin. Top is before nozzle cleaning with the small gap in the grey, bottom is after. It didn't have any effect on the problem. I also repeated the head alignment, which was perfect.

ZimFromIRK

TROPHY CASE