Easy Share G600 printer dock

I just bought a refurbished one.

It's all plugged in, it works fine, but when I print a photo it's all
faded, as if half the colors aren't printing.

And it's very noisy. Sounds like the ribbon cartridge isn't working
correctly.

The manual of course is all pictures, no words, and since I'm new at
this I can't figure out what's wrong.

I "took up the slack" as instructed, so that the ribbon is pink, but
when I look at it once a photo has been printed it's pale. Is that
the way it's supposed to look, or is the ribbon not advancing? Is
there some tag I'm supposed to remove before the ribbon can move?

I tried to take up the slack again but the ribbon no longer moves at
all, and of course I don't want to apply force to it...

Thanks for any help.