When you’re just starting out, you may be duplicating
your own CDs, and printing your labels and jackets on a
color inkjet printer.

As I recently discovered, every now and then the printer
goes haywire and the colors go psychedelic. You’ll start
getting pink where you should be getting green. Its
enough to make you think you need a new printer or an
expensive repair.

Chances are, you don’t.

The solution – as in many cases of “digital glitch-itis” – is
simple.

You may only need to clean your print heads or unclog
the ink nozzles. Now before you freak out, most printers
have built-in utilities where this is as easy as clicking a
button or accessing a menu.

On my Epson inkjet, I can access these utilities from
inside the “Print” dialog box. Your printer may vary,
depending upon the manufacturer. But I’d bet they have
a simple, one-click way of making it happen. Its often
featured prominently in your product manual under
“Troubleshooting”. You can also call tech support, or
drop them an email.

Inkjet printers, like many things, work best when used
regularly. If you go weeks without using yours, (as I do)
you may run into clogging issues, where dried, clotted ink
can mess up your print quality. And one of the ways this
shows up is these mondo color shifts.

So before you do anything drastic (or expensive!), try
cleaning the print head. Chances are, that’s your
problem.

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