Imac 3.2GH core i3 and printing

Question

Hi,
I have a new iMac and I am having trouble printing. I have been on the Apple support but they are unable to help either. The trouble I have is printing photos.
I have tried two different printers HP Photosmart all-in-one with a resolution of 4800 x 1200 and a Canon PIXMA MG6150 with a resolution of 9600 x 2400 dpi.
The prints from, for example, Safari are OK. But from iPhoto the prints resemble something like brail! with the colours all over the place, almost as if the printer can not "mix" the colours.
This was the result on both the HP and Canon printers.
The ink is still wet and takes ages for it to dry on the photo paper.
I tried printing the photo from a different application ie Preview, under a different log on id, cleaning th eprinter head, running test pages, printed a different photo, used a different photot from a separate down load from the camera. All this has made no difference.
The camera I used was a Canon Powershot 9 which is a very high resolution camera and I havenot experienceed this before with the photos from it on a PC.
I am running the printer wireless.
I can not think of any thing else other than perhaps I am experting too much. This is my first computer and I though photos would come out in a reasonable quality that you would be able to put in an album. However, this is not the case.
Thnaks
Richard

Answer 1

You do realize that it is not just the settings in the computer, but that the printer actually does the printing. One needs to check all the equipment before putting all the blame on a single one. I have printed outstanding photo quality pages with my iMacs and Epson printers.
To begin with, you did not specify the HP model, so I checked your Canon model. Did you install the correct drivers and other software needed for your printer to communicate with the computer? I found this page:
http://software.canon-europe.com/products/0010891.asp
When you tried to print from Preview for instance, did you check and/or adjust all the settings available in the print window under all the drop down windows? For instance, under color management, there are quite a few choices alone.
And, quite importantly, the ink being wet and taking ages to dry appears to possibly point to a printer malfunction.