HP Photosmart Printer Bit the Dust

When we first moved to DC ten years ago, I had to get a new printer. I remember driving out to some place in Virginia and getting an HP Photosmart printer because back in the day I would print a lot of personal photos. Plus it was nice to have FAX and scanning capability. A few years later, that one needed to be replaced and we got an all in one Photosmart printer that also required four ink cartridges. Now we use it primarily for my digital artwork and it takes FOREVER to print one page. I have a gallery wall at the Wagtime shop and I need the printer to make 8x10 photos that I mount on foam board. Yesterday I was trying to get a bit organized and print up the latest batch of pet portraits. The first one went without a hitch. Then I tried to make my business cards and they looked dreadful. I checked the ink and replaced a couple cartridges. I tried again. No luck. I cleaned the cartridges and ran a quality report. Terrible! I tried to align the cartridges and it failed the test. I turned it off an on, and cleaned the cartridges again. Nothing. It would get a little better, then scratchy again. I changed the black ink cartridge. Still nothing. After messing around with this for a couple of hours, I rechecked the website to see what else I could do. I wasn't about to change the print headers, or whatever they are - it would be easier to just replace the printer. Unfortunately I still have a few unopened and very expensive ink cartridges for this printer. So I spent the rest of the day looking at the newest HP printers available today and planned to get a replacement before the weekend. I also wondered if I should start sending the pet portrait images to a printing place rather than doing it myself. But then we wouldn't have the printer when we really needed it to print something out or make copies of other things. I'm hoping I can get a deal being that the school year just started. That will be the next story.