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HP Printer photo print quality went down after 40 prints. HELP!!!?

I have an HP C4180 All in One Printer. The first 40 pictures were great, after that they got all pink, streaky and blurry. I performed the "clean cartridges", "prime", "align" programs that the printer has but it didn't help. The cartridges are 50% full. Are these printers only good when the cartridges are 100% full? I printed regular documents and they came out fine. Anyone else had the same problem with other HP printers???

Public Comments

1. Check the HP tech support site and search similar forums. If nothing seems relevant, call their tech support. If they can't talk you through fixing it, either try to RMA it to HP or return it to the store where you bought it for an exchange. I've been using HP printers for years, but haven't encountered this particular problem, so I don't know if there's an easier/quicker way to fix this, but these are the steps I'd take. Hope this helps!
2. 40 pictures? That machine will accept two different color cartridges, one comes with 5ml of ink, the other with 7ml. 40 pictures from either of those cartridges is commendable. Your cartridge is most likely empty. Ink level indicator is not like a fuel gauge, it's a page counter. Your printer has calculated that you printed ### pages....but you printed pics, using more ink than their calculated average. Pink indicates you ran out of cyan and yellow, and are left with only magenta. Refill or replace your color cartridge, should solve your problem.