Not quite, but I have two printers at my disposal (Canon/Epson) and neither of them will print out the colour red despite having full ink tanks. I've tried numerous nozzle cleans on both printers but the Canon will do orange at best, while the Epson doesn't even get that far. Is this a coincidence or could it be software? Puzzling.

Sounds like a s/w problem. In your "Print With Preview" dialog box, have you enabled "Printer Color management"?
Regards, Murray

As far as I can tell, all colour management settings are set to 'auto' on each of the imaging software programs I've tried to print with. Same results though.

Have you run the nozzle check utility? I know Epson has this feature, but I don't know about Canon. Did all the fields print clean without any breaks in the lines? I've attached a photo. It will vary depending on what printer you have.

The nozzle check results were poor (on the epson) even after after several cleans. I guess I'm going to have to remove the print head and try cleaning it manually.

Color mangement is vital here - AUTO does not assure that you are getting the right colors

You need to have your color management setup and of course ensure that you have your monitor calibrated.

by the sounds of things, this here could be a number of things that has gone wrong.

Printer needs to perform correctly...what model is this?
also remember Red is a derived color unless you have something like an R800 which has a red ink in it (not saying that the R800 is excluesive to have a red ink but used as an example)

hope you get it solved

Henrik

It's a Canon S600. I've just had a play with the colour management settings but the reds come out orange every time. Incidentally, the three colour carts are Canon originals but the black is a cheapo. Is black used to generate red?
The other is an Epson C86 and it would appear that one nozzle is completely blocked as no magenta is coming through at all despite numerous cleans. That is until I did 10 (!) head cleans in a row, now it's fine although I've just run out of black!

Note the cleaning process uses a lot of ink so you want to avoid multiple runs if you can. Sometimes, however, you have no choice.

I am no expert on this, but I usually alternate between a head cleaning and the nozzle check utility as well as running a test print every so often. If 2-3 passes hasn't resolved the clog, I usually try windex to clean the heads (see threads below).

This thread may help:

Problem Getting Quality Prints (http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/hardware/7324-problem-getting-quality-prints.html)

I also found these through a google search

Some suggestions for unclogging your Epson Printer (http://www.inkjetart.com/tips/cleaning.html)

Unclog an Epson (http://www.inkjetmall.com/store/techsupport/ts-unclogging.html)

TIP: To avoid such blockages, it's a good idea to print something, both in color and black & white once a week or so.

I have a Canon from that series (S800) The print heads do clog up in a somewhat permanant way over time (I try give mine a good clean every time I change an ink tank to extend printhead life), if you can't sluice/soak the blockage away, you may need to replace the blocked printhead carriage.