Black ink smears on photo as it prints

Some of Epson's ink have inconsistent quality. Some batches have runny ink. Nozzle cleaning and print head alignments don't help at all, if they didn't make it worse in the first place. I've experienced problems like yours several times as well. Here's what I did that worked for my Epson 960. Move the printer to a really dry place. Take out all the ink and let the printer sit and dry for a few days and then change all ink cartridges. Make sure you buy newly created ink. All Epson ink come with born-on dating so find the ones with the most recent dates and make sure the whole batch is produced at around the same time to ensure color consistency. Plug them in and try it out. If the problem remains, you may need to bring the printer in for repairs.