Unfortunately...it could be any number of things.

Printer calibrations...video cards...monitor settings...paper...certain fonts...etc.

 

Even the ink you buy could make a difference...High destiny cartridges, can (and do....no matter what the manufacturer says) print darker or lighter as the case may be.

 

If you get refills from a place like "Cartridge World" instead of the manufacturers ink...it could print differently. (although they say it's the exact same mix).

 

Typically...I'll buy a refill if I'm printing a lot of text..or may if I'm printing 100 CD labels to save a few bucks...but for Hi Resolution and/or glossy "Prints"....I'll usually cough up the extra money and get the manufacturers recommended high density ink.

 

Also:

 

Monitors "All" display differently.

 

A perfect example is:

 

I have a 256 meg 3DLabs Wildcat VP880 Pro dual output "Graphics Accelerator"... (3DLabs hate's it when someone calls it a "Video Card"...lol)

 

Which...by the way....I found out recently,that on Feb 24th of 2006, they "Refocused it's 3D business on the portable handheld device market and de-emphasized it's professional workstation business". They (3Dlabs) will continue to sell and support its current Wildcat graphics cards, but no future products will be brought to market..(It was US $499.00 So we're not talkin about some cheapo gamming card)

 Anyway...the "Graphics Accelerator" is set to display identically on both of my monitors (including dual (openGL)...and to make this test even more authentic...I have the exact same monitors as well.(HP pavilion mx 70's on this particular PC)...anyway...I've also set the monitor setting exactly the same (even restored to factory defaults and both use the same color profile.

 

**Guess what?...**one is darker than the other...I even physically swapped them on the on the "Graphics Accelerator" as well as swapped the default "First" monitor in the Driver, and again... set both monitors to default settings as well.....One is always just a bit darker than the other one.

 

And another "Guess What?... I got a brand new Lexmark X5470 all in one printer recently...and it's output looks different than what either monitor displays..

 

I just keep playing with the settings until I get it as close as I can.

 

You might try playing with the "DPI" setting on your printers driver as well...Maybe try 150...or 300.

 

Sure...you'll waste a some ink testing and re-testing...but once you get it right....you should be able to save those settings in the printer driver...and it should remain pretty accurate for most future images. But you'll likely encounter an image ( one that is perhaps lighter or darker in it;s nature) that will need to be tweaked and tested a bit.

 

It's sounds like a lot of work and troubleshooting, But I wouldn't run out an buy a new printer just yet until you try some testing first.

I usually temporarily scale the image down to 50% or even 25% during testing to save ink.

 

Good luck.

 

Tom

“The fact that no one understands you…Doesn’t make you an artist.”