Is there a way to change the print quality from "normal" to "high"?

If your Epson Stylus Photo 1400 has any problems, see these sections for solutions: ... The printer is receiving a print job, replacing an ink cartridge, charging ink, or cleaning ... If you're printing on a CD or DVD, the CD/DVD tray has not ejected. ... Select a higher Quality Option or Print Quality and turn off High Speed mode.

A driver component is missing meaning not installed good or not all the drivers for printer is installed.

Well there are few tests you could run to make sure it's not the printer.

1. You said you already tried different print cartridges and it didn't make a difference.

2. Have you tried printing anything else? Like the windows test page? Does that come out gray as well? The reason I suggest this is because sometimes when printing a document you can set the printer settings to always print in "Draft" mode. This mode allows the printer to conserve the ink which make black look faded or gray. If you can make sure the printer settings are set to "Normal" or "High Quality" then test.

3. Also are you buying the printer cartridges from the same vendor? What I mean is that sometimes different vendors have different quality of printer cartridges. Some sell re-use/re-furbished print cartridges for a much lower price, and some sell OEM (original equipment manufacturer) for "an arm and a leg". So make sure you have a good quality print cartridges.

Hope this helps

P.S In the future you should let us know what make and model your printer is, this will help us narrow down the issue, or if we have had this issue happen to us we can let you know.

Set the print quality to normal or best.
Clean the printhead
Run a calibration.
The Kodak EasyShare AiO performs a calibration every time you install or replace a printhead. However, you can run a calibration if you are seeing changes in the image quality. Calibration aligns the printheads and performs a nozzle health check to enable high-quality prints.
1 Load the main tray or photo tray with photo paper.
IMPORTANT: If you don't have any photo paper, you can use plain paper, but photo paper is highly recommended for calibrations.
2 Press and hold Photo and Cancel together to make a calibration print.
3 Follow the instructions on the calibration print to calibrate the printer.

What print quality are you using? Go to the print window, check properties. Under the features tab check print quality. If you are using anything above normal such as Best or Maximum DPI, more memory is necessary to print and will slow down printing. If you don't need high quality printing, change the setting.

The settings in the printer driver over-ride settings selected from the printer. Drill down in the driver to find the setting you want and change it from there.

the pixma printers use the large black tank in most modes like text and standard (default) or fast photo printing .. thats most economical when you are using just plain paper .... it will switch to the small black tank only if you select "High" quality mode .. that black matches the nature of the color inks much better and results in really good color pictures if you are using Gloss or Matt high quality photo paper .. you can select the quality level by the following ... when you start to print, a window comes up where you can select which printer you want ... at the right of this window is "preferences" .. click that .. now select the type of paper and "High" quality mode .... now the printer will slow down but will provide really nice results and it will use the small tank black ink instead of the large tank ....the small tank is only used for "high" quality photo prints which is only needed for high quality photo paper .. if you havent tried that yet you might want to get some glossy photo paper (either Canons or Costco has great stuff if you want a lot, like 150 sheets) but most glossy paper will work except colors might need tweeking for some ... print a nice photo in the high quality mode and you should be really impressed .. and you will be using your small black ink tank .. you might want to make the first few pictures small (2x3 inch) untill you are sure everything is the way you want it .. i usually print in the top left corner first .. then reinsert the same paper and try again right next to that .. i do that until i get the colors perfect .. then i print big .. 5x7 or even 8x10 on a new sheet... the high quality mode can be selected for just plain paper and it will use the special black ink but it doesnt result in a better picture .. so no point in doing that unless you want to experiment .. if you never print high quality photos then you will never use the small tank black ink .. it will still be used up eventually because of normal head cleaning the machine does automatically .. ...
grey scaling does not select the special ink unless you select "High" for the quality setting .. then yes you can print using that small tank black ..again it will buy you a lot if you are using High quality photo paper ... almost nothing for plain paper but at least it will allow you to use that ink .. ..

Switch to a higher print mode. Follow the steps below to switch to a higher print mode.

1. In the program you are printing from, click File and then click Print .
2. Make sure the printer is selected, and then click Properties .
3. Select the Paper/Quality tab.
4. In the Print Quality area, click the next high-quality setting. If the current setting is Draft, click Normal. If the current setting is Normal, click Best.

Have you uninstalled the driver, and reinstalled it?

Are you running Windows Vista? If so, have you downloaded the latest software from Brother's website? www.brother.com

It sounds like the driver is confusing the settings internally, which leads me to think that it is either corrupt or not compatible with your operating system.

It could be your print quality is set too high! Go to Printer and Faxes in Control Panel! Right Click on your printer and select properties On the General Tab click on Printing preferences! Look for something that Says quality or graphics or something like that! If its set to high quality then set it to normal If its set to normal then try draft!( but if you need to do this then there is an underlying issue!) Try this and get back to me! regards, babb