OS-X color printing KAPUT!!!

I sure hope someone can help me.

A couple of months ago my color printing started looking terrible.......dull, washed-out and grainy. It only got worse from there. Anything printed from iphoto turned out garish high-contrast red/yellow/black, while Preview continued to print out the same dull, washed-out and grainy.

This week I downloaded some of my photos and took them to a print shop. They printed out beautifully. So it is not the camera that is the problem.

Tonight I hooked up the HP Photosmart c4400 printer I got free with this laptop a year ago. It printed nothing but magenta and black. And even that is grainy. Given that 2 printers won't print correctly, both old and new printers, I don't think it is a printer problem.

I think it must be OS-X!

Please HELP!!!

I need color prints for my work, so this is really getting to be a problem!

color printing KAPUT!!!

This is like trying to solve a mystery. The camera is not the problem, because I could transfer photos onto a disc and print out beautifully at a print shop. And I'm pretty satisfied that it is not printers that are the problem.

I just printed out a test page on my old hp printer. A bit grainy, but the color is great! Nothing like the color results I get from iphoto or preview.......which are terrible, whether I use the old or new hp printers.


I think it must be the OS-X. The more I think about it, the problems may have started when I downloaded an upgrade.

Does this sound familiar to anyone?

Need to check your printer settings.

Thank you.
But I don't have a page that looks like that.

BTW......I used this hp printer for years with a desktop Mac and a previous Mac with no problems! I think my printing problems started when I downloaded a Mac update a couple of months ago. A security update, I think it was.

Printing gone haywire since then!
And I'm an artist who needs good print quality for submission to shows.

Please help!