HP Photosmart c4480 - poor quality photo prints

Hi, First clean the print head and clean the nozzles. Reset your printer and select best quality printing in printer properties. Finally you have to replace the cartridges.

Some ink may have become dried up in the pinthead.
Do a couple of ink cleaning cycles may help.

Try this and let me know how it works?

Try here-> HP Support & Drivers

My documents were printing red instead of black so I installed a new black cartridge. No it did not solve the problem. Yes I did run the utility to clean the heads. I finally went into the Printer Properties, advanced settings and set Print in Grayscale to Black Ink Only and it worked. You may need to turn off other settings related to photo printing.

I have to ask this question of you, just to make sure this is not an issue. Are you using a factory new ink or toner cartridge?
Please consider the following:
If you are using a refilled or third party cartridges that may well be your problem. Most manufacturers build logic into their products to prevent the use of “Other Equipment Manufactured” cartridges as well as re-filled cartridges.
They do this to prevent problems from contaminated inks or toner causing problems with print quality or damaging the physical printhead or photo conductors.
If you are using factory new ink or toner cartridges, then please call the manufacturer’s Technical Support for assistance with the warranty on the cartridges
Don

this printer sucks - had it 5 months. replaced cartridge. says incompatible print cartridge no matter what I do. their support blows

Are you using a factory new ink cartridge?
If you are using a refilled or third party cartridge that may well be your problem. Most manufacturers build logic into their products to prevent the use of “Other Equipment Manufactured” cartridges as well as re-filled cartridges.
They do this to prevent problems from contaminated inks causing problems with print quality or damaging the physical printhead.
Don

Shaking these cartridges does nothing except give you a little exercise. If this is a brand new HP cartridge you are having problems with I would return it to the store you purchased it from. HP brand cartridges should not give you these problems right out of the box. The print defects you are seeing are due to a dried up or clogged print head. If you like you can try hydrating the print head on a water soaked paper towel until the ink starts flowing, but there's a risk you will cross contaminate the colors.

You can download the manual from Software & Downloads here.
Then work through this article and see here to diagnose the printing problem. Make sure the print quality is set for photos in the print preferences or properties.
You might try cleaning the cartridge contacts as described here.
Make sure you are using a good quality paper, that it is feeding correctly,

I hope this information allows you to resolve this issue. If you need further assistance, please post back with a comment to this thread.
If I've managed to answer your question or solve a problem, please take just a moment to rate this post....thanks!