A printing system comprising an inkjet printhead including at least two inkjet nozzle arrays arranged along a print line, and a media guide having a contoured media guide surface for guiding receiver media along a media path past the inkjet printhead. The inkjet nozzle arrays are separated from each other along the print line by one or more intervening non-printing regions. The media guide surface is contoured such that it is closer to the inkjet printhead for portions of the print line corresponding to the inkjet nozzle arrays than it is for at least some portion of the print line corresponding to the non-printing regions between the inkjet nozzle arrays.