Banding and How to Fix It

Sometimes you mention banding in printer reviews, in comments like "Graphics suffer from banding in default mode." Can you explain what you mean by that? Some printers I've tested create faint parallel lines spaced approximately a quarter-inch apart that run the entire width of the page. Is that banding? And is there any way you can get rid of it?


Banding refers to any repetitive pattern that divides the image into parallel bands or strips. Assuming that the printers you're testing don't have any clogged nozzles and are aligned properly (you can check both nozzles and alignment using the appropriate utility in each printer's driver), the lines you're describing are most probably caused by successive sweeps of the printhead. You can often get rid of this kind of banding by choosing a higher quality mode.

You can change quality levels for a specific print job by loading the file you want to print, and then choosing File | Print, making sure the right printer is showing in the Name text box, and choosing the Properties button to open the driver and search through it for the settings. Depending on the printer, these quality modes may be named something like Fastest, Normal, and Best Quality, or perhaps Text, Mixed Text and Graphics, Photo, and Best Photo. Don't pay too much attention to the names; photo mode improves graphics too. Just experiment with the higher quality modes to see if there's one that makes the bands go away.

blog comments powered by Disqus