New Pigment Printers...

[frederick]

A3+ sizes from Canon and HP...
10 colour from Canon, 8 colour from HP.
And a replacement from Canon for i9900/9500, now with Chromalife 100 dye
(looks like a big iP8500)
Great stuff - some competition at last for Epson at the high end of
consumer / small pro photo printers.

 

[bmoag]

The problem with Canon is that thier color management protocols in recent
driver generations are not as reliable as Epson's. Also Canon manufactures
an exceedingly limited, basically 2, paper types with which they include
profiles with their printer drivers. This is hardly competition at the high
end for Epson, even if Canon puts 256 different color inks in their
printers.

 

[rafe b]

The problem with Canon is that thier color management protocols in recent
driver generations are not as reliable as Epson's. Also Canon manufactures
an exceedingly limited, basically 2, paper types with which they include
profiles with their printer drivers. This is hardly competition at the high
end for Epson, even if Canon puts 256 different color inks in their
printers.

Canon would certainly love to have a piece of
Epson's market, but so far they've made a few
stupid moves.

The print driver on my Canon S9000 was a joke.
In a word: condescending, to the max. They
seem bent on hiding any detail that might
confuse or upset the clueless newbie user.

There was some issue with Canon's error-diffusion
or dithering algorithm that creates a very fine
micro-banding -- not just on my printer but on
almost every other comparable machine that I was
able to observe.

By contrast, the driver on my Epson R1800 is
a gem; support for ICC-based color management
is simple, straightforward, and thoroughly
documented in the user manual. Plus, Epson
provides a large collection of great ICC
profiles, at no charge, on their website.


rafe b
www.terrapinphoto.com

 

[frederick]

The problem with Canon is that thier color management protocols in recent
driver generations are not as reliable as Epson's. Also Canon manufactures
an exceedingly limited, basically 2, paper types with which they include
profiles with their printer drivers. This is hardly competition at the high
end for Epson, even if Canon puts 256 different color inks in their
printers.

The proof will be in the pudding. Many serious Epson users use other
than Epson papers, and many Canon users actually use Epson papers,
despite the poor longevity of that combination. The new HP printer
comes with some profiles, and even some display permanence rating
figures for high quality third-party papers other than HP "advanced" -
which is probably the only suitable photo paper in HP's present range.
Within the limitations of dye inks, both Canon and HP have produced some
great consumer/home photo printers - and you will find many a review in
PC magazines etc, where the significance of colour accuracy is either
understated or ignored completely - but the over-saturated "kodachrome"
look is valued greatly.
I've seen a range of different model pixma home printers from the 4000
through to the 9900 lined up side by side, printing the same image on
the same paper from the same computer and software. The colour balance
varied widely (and I mean widely) from printer to printer. Nobody
seemed to care - most consumers at that level don't even notice. Given
Canon's position in the amateur and professional camera market, I bet
that they know what the expectations will be, and I bet that they don't
stuff it up from a marketing POV. Canon in particular are an extremely
effective marketing company.

Many pros already use HP designjet printers for large format printing,
so they already have a leg in the door.

 

[Jon O'Brien]

Also Canon manufactures an exceedingly limited, basically 2, paper
types...

According to the press release, there are '...more than 30 types of Canon-branded media available...' and '...seven new fine art papers...'

Even if they don't provide profiles for the new printer for all their papers, professional users wouldn't be too bothered. When you pay that much for a printer, the cost of a custom profile is negligible.

Jon.

 

[frederick]

Canon would certainly love to have a piece of
Epson's market, but so far they've made a few
stupid moves.

The print driver on my Canon S9000 was a joke.
In a word: condescending, to the max. They
seem bent on hiding any detail that might
confuse or upset the clueless newbie user.

There was some issue with Canon's error-diffusion
or dithering algorithm that creates a very fine
micro-banding -- not just on my printer but on
almost every other comparable machine that I was
able to observe.

By contrast, the driver on my Epson R1800 is
a gem; support for ICC-based color management
is simple, straightforward, and thoroughly
documented in the user manual. Plus, Epson
provides a large collection of great ICC
profiles, at no charge, on their website.


rafe b
www.terrapinphoto.com

IMO, more interesting than the Canon is the new HP printer, despite
having less ink tanks than the Pro9500.
The HP has separate ink tanks and printer heads. If the HP is like the
smaller versions of their new 8200 series dye printers - recycling ink
used in cleaning, and the ink is priced reasonably, then it might be
very economical to run - the ink cartridges are 28ml - twice the size of
normal Canon/Epson cartridges in this market, and it might not waste any
at all in cleaning!

The HP printer also has "closed loop calibration" built in. It sounds
like it really might be the goods.

 

[rafe b]

IMO, more interesting than the Canon is the new HP printer, despite
having less ink tanks than the Pro9500.
The HP has separate ink tanks and printer heads. If the HP is like the
smaller versions of their new 8200 series dye printers - recycling ink
used in cleaning, and the ink is priced reasonably, then it might be
very economical to run - the ink cartridges are 28ml - twice the size of
normal Canon/Epson cartridges in this market, and it might not waste any
at all in cleaning!

The HP printer also has "closed loop calibration" built in. It sounds
like it really might be the goods.

I owned a DesignJet 30 for about a year and
can comment from experience on some of these
matters.

The DJ30 was in fact incredibly frugal with
ink. I can say it was/is the most ink-
efficient inkjet printer I've ever used.

I very much appreciated the design of the
ink-delivery system (large, stationary carts)
and user-replaceable heads. Never once
had even a hint of a clog.

The paper-feed system and paper path were
terrible, though. Paper sits in the input
tray with the printing side down. Paper
is bent 180 degrees as it goes through the
printer. If you weren't extremely careful,
it was likely to jam just as the print was
being ejected. What a disaster.

The closed-loop color calibration never
worked, on my DJ30, on *any* glossy paper,
including HP's. This was apparently a
known issue, but never resolved by HP.

How ironic, considering that the "niche"
of the DJ series was print longevity with
dye inks on glossy and satin papers.

Interesting to me that no single printer
company gets it "all right." Each one has
certain strengths and weaknesses.



rafe b
www.terrapinphoto.com

 

[SleeperMan]

A3+ sizes from Canon and HP...
10 colour from Canon, 8 colour from HP.
And a replacement from Canon for i9900/9500, now with Chromalife 100
dye (looks like a big iP8500)
Great stuff - some competition at last for Epson at the high end of
consumer / small pro photo printers.

i really can't understand why they don't put 32 million carts in it...
I mean, really. If common sense tells you that you can get ALL colors with
basic three ones.

 

[rafe b]

i really can't understand why they don't put 32 million carts in it...
I mean, really. If common sense tells you that you can get ALL colors with
basic three ones.

More colors are generally better, but you know,
there are practical limits.

With the standard six-color CMYcmK ink set, my
Canon S9000 or HP DesignJet 30 couldn't reach
more than about 10-12% of the overall volume of
sRGB space.

Pure, deep blues and purples, for example, are
still outside the range.

And monochrome (neutral gray) printing isn't
dead yet. Seems to be making a comeback, in
fact.


rafe b
www.terrapinphoto.com

 

[SleeperMan]

More colors are generally better, but you know,
there are practical limits.

With the standard six-color CMYcmK ink set, my
Canon S9000 or HP DesignJet 30 couldn't reach
more than about 10-12% of the overall volume of
sRGB space.

Pure, deep blues and purples, for example, are
still outside the range.

And monochrome (neutral gray) printing isn't
dead yet. Seems to be making a comeback, in
fact.


rafe b
www.terrapinphoto.com

hm...if that's true, they both make a hell of a job with other 88-90 %---

 

[measekite]

frederick wrote:



i really can't understand why they don't put 32 million carts in it...
I mean, really. If common sense tells you that you can get ALL colors with
basic three ones.

THEN A SHMUCK LIKE YOU CAN SPEND ALL YEAR REFILLING THEM

 

[rafe b]

rafe b wrote:

hm...if that's true, they both make a hell of a job with other 88-90 %---

Indeed they do. Best analogy I can think
of is an ice cube in dixie cup.

The water in the cup is sRGB or AdobeRGB space.
The ice cube is your printer's color space.

90% of the ice cube is underwater. That's the
part of the printer's space that's contained
within sRGB.

10% of the ice cube is above water. That's
the small region where your printer's color
space may exceed sRGB.

In any case, we're talking about one odd-
shaped volume that is mostly (but not
completely) contained within a much
larger odd-shaped volume.

If you have and use ICC profiles for your
printer, you can see all this graphically
at www.iccview.de. It's really quite
interesting and entertaining.



rafe b
www.terrapinphoto.com