Photo paper for Canon i9900

[ji]

I've seen a lot of info on inks in this newsgroup, but not very much on
photo paper for the i9900. Right now I am using the remainder of some cheap
Staples paper. When I am ready to buy I would hate to have to try every type
to see which gets the best results. I'm hoping someone has gone through this
and might share his knowledge. I'm only interested in paper for photographs.
Thank you very much.
Ji

 

[measekite]

I've seen a lot of info on inks in this newsgroup, but not very much on
photo paper for the i9900. Right now I am using the remainder of some cheap
Staples paper. When I am ready to buy I would hate to have to try every type
to see which gets the best results. I'm hoping someone has gone through this
and might share his knowledge. I'm only interested in paper for photographs.
Thank you very much.
Ji

THE BEST FOR THE MONEY IS THE FULL SHEET COSTCO KIRKLAND PHOTO GLOSSY
PAPER FOR UNDER 20 BUCKS FOR 125 SHEETS. FOR LARGER PAPERS USE CANON
PHOTO PAPER PRO. THESE TWO PAPERS ARE COMPRABLE WITH PHOTO PAPER PRO
BEING A TAD SMOOTHER.

AND THAT IS WITH CANON OEM INK. THE ONLY INK THAT SHOULD BE IN THAT PRINTER

 

[bmoag]

I strongly recommend you learn to use this printer properly.
The only way to see what the 9900 can produce is by using proper color
management.
Once you understand this process you will realize what is wrong with this
and all Canon printers. Canon printers are worthless unless you invest the
time and effort to create your own paper profiles.
Canon only makes two paper types, matte and glossy, and its canned profiles
are not all that great.
If you invest in something at the level of the Monaco Optix XR bundle you
will be able to create credible custom paper profiles that will markedly
improve the output of this printer with both Canon and non-Canon papers.
Unless you create your own custom paper profile for use with this printer
all you can do is randomly hope one of Canon's canned profiles for its own
papers will give credible results.

 

[Burt]

I strongly recommend you learn to use this printer properly.
The only way to see what the 9900 can produce is by using proper color
management.
Once you understand this process you will realize what is wrong with this
and all Canon printers. Canon printers are worthless unless you invest the
time and effort to create your own paper profiles.
Canon only makes two paper types, matte and glossy, and its canned
profiles are not all that great.
If you invest in something at the level of the Monaco Optix XR bundle you
will be able to create credible custom paper profiles that will markedly
improve the output of this printer with both Canon and non-Canon papers.
Unless you create your own custom paper profile for use with this printer
all you can do is randomly hope one of Canon's canned profiles for its own
papers will give credible results.

I would certainly agree that the Canon profiles, using Canon OEM ink and
their best glossy paper, aren't terribly accurate. My i960 printer leans a
bit toward the red on skin tones and has to be tweaked. I've read this
about other i960's, so I would guess that this is typical of this particular
model. Other models tend toward other color casts from what I've read. The
answer to ji's question, however, is that there are several papers that work
as well in Canon printers. The one I use most often for photo printing is
Costco's Kirkland glossy photo paper. There are other papers that will give
you greater print longevity, but the costco paper does beautiful prints at a
very reasonable cost. I've also used several Epson papers with Canon
printers. For greeting cards I've used Staples photo supreme double sided
matte paper which prints extremely well and has a good weight and feel.
Second best but still pretty good is the double sided Epson matte paper.
BTW, I refill my carts with MIS inks and have done side-by-side comparisons
with Canon OEM ink. Difficult, if not impossible, to tell the difference.

 

[Marge]

HI
I want to thank measekite, bmoag, and Burt for their replies. I'm sure I
will get Costco photo paper. However, I do have a couple questions that I
would like to ask.
For bmoag. What is the Monaco Optix XR bundle?
For Burt. What are MIS inks?
An answer would sure be appreciated.
Thank you and best wishes.
Ji

 

[Burt]

HI
I want to thank measekite, bmoag, and Burt for their replies. I'm sure I
will get Costco photo paper. However, I do have a couple questions that I
would like to ask.
For bmoag. What is the Monaco Optix XR bundle?
For Burt. What are MIS inks?
An answer would sure be appreciated.
Thank you and best wishes.
Ji

Marge - Let me preface this comment by telling you that it will be followed
by Measekite's ongoing diatribe against aftermarket inks. He's never used
them and does not speak from experience. Several participants on this
newsgroup and on the Nifty-stuff forum have had years of experience with
aftermarket inks and can be trusted. There are many vendors of cartridges
that are prefilled with aftermarket inks, but the most reliable approach and
also the cheapest is to refill the carts yourself. Once you get the hang of
doing it you can confine the little bit of mess that can occur. I sometimes
refill my carts at my computer desk which is in a room with wall-to-wall
light beige wool berber carpets. MIS bulk inks are sold by inksupply.com.
Alotofthings.com sells Formulabs bulk refill ink as well as several brands
of aftermarket prefilled carts. (There was recently an evaluation of
Procolor and G&G carts that are available from Alotofthings by Neil Slade.)
There is also a company called Hobbicolors that sells on ebay. All of these
products have users who have reported that the colors are good and the
products don't damage their printers. Just be sure to only buy products
that have been reported to be reliable.

 

[measekite]

HI
I want to thank measekite, bmoag, and Burt for their replies. I'm sure I
will get Costco photo paper. However, I do have a couple questions that I
would like to ask.
For bmoag. What is the Monaco Optix XR bundle?
For Burt. What are MIS inks?

THEY ARE AFTERMARKET INKS WHERE THE RELABELER WILL NOT DISCLOSE WHO THE
MFG FORMULATOR IS SO ONE CAN NOT KNOW WHAT THEY ARE GETTING, WHO ELSE
SELLS IT, AND THE REPUTATION OF THE MFG. AND EASILY ALLOW THE USER TO
DETERMINE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE.

 

[Russell E. Owen]

I've seen a lot of info on inks in this newsgroup, but not very much on
photo paper for the i9900. Right now I am using the remainder of some cheap
Staples paper. When I am ready to buy I would hate to have to try every type
to see which gets the best results. I'm hoping someone has gone through this
and might share his knowledge. I'm only interested in paper for photographs.
Thank you very much.

I've tried a few and they all worked fine once I got the color
management right:

I have a MacOS X system and I don't know how to translate this to
Windows. With that in mind:

The important thing is to use ColorSynch to manage color, rather than
the default BJ setting. This is in a panel with a name something like
Color Options (I'm not at home at the moment to verify). If you don't
change this, your prints will have very poor color.

Also, to get the highest resolution printing:
- Set the media type to Canon Photo Paper Pro.
- In the same panel, it may help to click the "Custom" radiobutton and
drag the quality slider that appears all the way to the right. (Whether
this prints any higher quality than choosing the highest quality
non-custom radiobutton I have no idea.) Warning: this slows down
printing quite a bit. I think the improvement in resolution is worth the
wait, but you may not.

Note that you can only slide that custom slider all the way to the right
if the media type is Canon Photo Paper Pro. This is presumably a sneaky
way of making pictures look worse than they need to on cheaper paper
(and unless you click Custom you'd never know it was happening).

The papers I've tried include:
- Canon Photo Paper Pro
- Canon Photo Paper Plus
- Konica QP
- some older OfficeDepot photo inkjet paper (they have since redone
their line and I have no idea if it's still sold, and if so, what it's
called)
- Staples good (not best) photo paper
I noticed little difference between them, but the Staples paper was a
notch down in resolution.

-- Russell

 

[JSF]

When I first tried Kodak Papers they sucked badly to the point the ink would
almost puddle on the paper. Now I have read that their New papers are very
good even good as the canon pro and also, even saying that a 100 year life
can de had with dye inks , not pigmented inks, does this mean that the
pigmented inks have no advantage over the dye inks now?

 

[Bob Headrick]

When I first tried Kodak Papers they sucked badly to the point the ink
would almost puddle on the paper. Now I have read that their New
papers are very good even good as the canon pro and also, even saying
that a 100 year life can de had with dye inks , not pigmented inks,
does this mean that the pigmented inks have no advantage over the dye
inks now?

Beware of "marketing spin" with regards to print longevity. Some
manufacturers use a low level of illumination for their fade tests,
resulting in better claims. Henry Wilhelm is a recognized expert in
this field and provides apples to apples data for many major
manufacturers ins and papers. See http://www.wilhelm-research.com/ for
a myriad of articles about fade testing on HP, Epson, Canon, Epson,
Lexmark and other printers and papers.

Regards,
Bob Headrick, MS MVP Printing/Imaging