Black smudges occurring on photos MG7720

[Joellea]

I have an MG7720 printer. Recently, it has started having black smudges on every picture I try to print. Most of the time it's on the left side, but occasionally on the right. I have cleaned, deep cleaned, cleaned the bottom plate & rollers. The only thing I didn't do was an alignment bc I kept getting an error message for the auto alignment (but it doesn't seem out of alignment anyways). The photo paper isn't curled up either. What else could this be & how do I fix it? 

 

[jrhoffman75]

You might have a leaking cartridge or a failing print head.

See if there is ink leaking from the print head.

How to Reinstall or Replace the Print Head - MG7720 (custhelp.com)

[Joellea]

Would this apply if this only happens from tray 1? From tray 2, I printed a  Word doc & it didn't happen. 

[jrhoffman75]

Are you printing same document from both trays and only one shows the problem?

[Joellea]

No, it hasn't been the same document. It's happened in tray 1 with all photos (5x7 & 4x6) but not from tray 2 when printing a normal 8x11 Word doc. I haven't tried printing the same thing from each - it's set up to default photos to print from tray 2 & regular things from tray 1 (I never have to manually select what tray to print from).