Digital BW, The Print

Hallo all, I'm using an epson 1290 and have for a while noticed that the
magenta channel (and sometimes the cyan) creates a very light random spray
around, either side and a little above where it's told to. It's only really
noticable on contrasty coloured/white edges, but has begun to concern me,
especially since I've noticed my black is seriously out of alignment too
(the magenta channel is rather fuzzy-edged as well, though this could be a
more extreme version of the spattering problem).

Whereas I can at least put the splatteriness down to dirt or something , the
black problem is odder, since a head alignment process says they are fine -
in the test sheet line 8 is the best in all three b/w prints, as it should
be, and 5 is best in the colour prints, also as it should be. But the black
text that labels them is out of alignment, very clearly. It's much improved
if I turn off high speed printing, but still not perfect.

I've had a look through the archives, and searched a few other groups and
the net generally, but I can't find any useful references to splattery
output, and don't really know how to search for
unalignable-heads-when-the-printer-says-they're-ok.



Any ideas, any experience with problems like this?
sandy @ www.euphy.co.uk