Rangefinder Magazine
March 2005

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Digital Photography: Canon’s Newest Printers by John Rettie

It’s amazing to realize that it’s been just 10 years since Epson first introduced the Stylus, an inkjet printer capable of producing near-photographic quality prints. At that time dye-sub was the only affordable way to produce decent prints on a desktop printer.

Canon’s i9900 inkjet printer should satisfy the most fastidious photographer who wants to produce prints up to 13x19 inches in size.

Last month I reviewed the Olympus P-440 dye-sub printer and suggested it was an appropriate printer for those who need to produce 8x10 photographic prints for event photography. However, if you need to produce a variety of different-sized prints on different paper stock an inkjet printer is the only choice nowadays.

Even commercial print shops are using inkjet printers to produce critical color proofs for clients, such is their quality.

Canon has been one of the most active printer manufacturers in the past year or so, introducing several new models. I recently took a look at two of their newest models.

Canon i9900 printer
The new flagship in Canon’s photo printer range has upped the ante with no less than eight colors. Other companies have followed suit, but whether it is a real benefit overall is tough to decide, however it certainly does produce stunning prints.

Regular inkjet printers have four colors—Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black. Epson started the trend to adding further colors when it came out with a six-color printer that added light Cyan and light Magenta to improve color gradations. Canon has gone a step further by adding Red and Green colors to the mix to widen the color gamut and produce richer reds and greens.

	No less than eight tanks are used in the i9900 in its quest to produce photographic prints.

The $499 i9900 printer can produce borderless prints up to 13x19 inches in size. It is connected to a computer via either a USB 2.0 or Firewire port. It also features a PictBridge USB port at the front that can be hooked up directly to a PictBridge enabled digital camera for printing without the need for a computer.

Like all Canon printers the actual print nozzles are contained on a separate carrier that is inserted first before each individual tank is snapped in place. The big advantage here is that the nozzles can be replaced as a unit by anyone, should they become damaged. Some printer manufacturers included the nozzles in the ink tanks, others have them built into the machine and can only be replaced by a factory technician. All in all, Canon’s method seems the most logical and cost effective. In all there are 6144 nozzles on the i9900, and each produces a 2-picoliter droplet giving the printer a 4800x2400-dpi resolution.

Thanks to all those nozzles working together, it manages to print at an amazingly fast rate. For example, it takes just under three minutes to print a 13x19 borderless print and just over half a minute to print a 4x6 print.

Canon’s iP4000 printer includesa unique feature—automatic duplex printing.

Other than the addition of two new colors, the printer uses the same cartridges as found in previous Canon photo printers, which is convenient for those who own one of these printers. Most of us have discovered that ink cartridges deplete at different rates. It certainly proves that an inkjet printer with a single combined tank holding all colors is very wasteful. If you do a lot of text printing or use black borders naturally the Black cartridge will empty first. However it seems that the two Photo Cyan and Photo Magenta cartridges are the ones that empty quickest when printing photographs.

Canon lists the “expected” capacity of each tank in the owner’s manual using an ISO standard. As expected, it also confirms that the two photo tanks empty fastest. The regular Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black all last longer. The two extra Red and Green colors last two to nine times as long as any of the other tanks. This suggest that the colors are only used sparingly in certain photographs, which is not surprising as they are such unusual colors for CMYK printing.

Canon PIXMA iP4000 printer
At the other end of the scale from the pro i9900 printer, Canon recently introduced a new line of entry-level inkjet printers under the Pixma brand. The iP4000 is a $149 photo printer that has a couple of neat features that set it apart. First it can do automatic duplex printing. It is neat to see a sheet of paper print out and then be retracted back into the printer and magically printed “backwards” on the reverse side without flipping the paper. It’s an ideal solution for anyone looking to print out presentations that need to be printed on both sides. Obviously it can be done manually on other printers, but it is so much easier to leave the positioning and print order to the printer. Canon has also introduced double-sided photo paper to enable the production of albums with images on both sides of each sheet.

	Easy PhotoPrint is a simple program included with Canon printers that makes it easy to automate the resizing of an image to produce prints in a variety of sizes.

The printer also contains a cassette tray underneath to hold paper in addition to the tray in the back. This makes it possible to keep two types of paper in the printer available for use at all times without changing paper. It even has the ability to select the correct paper as long as you tell it which paper is in which tray.

Although the printer is classified as a photo printer it only contains the regular Cyan, Magenta and Yellow tanks. However it has two black tanks. One is a regular dye-based ink, while the other is a pigment-based ink used for text printing. If you didn’t have prints from the i9900 to look at side by side, you probably would not notice the difference. Despite fewer colors, the quality is very good. Pros might find the iP4000 suitable for proof printing. Text is as crisp as that from a laser printer as long as good paper is used that doesn’t absorb the ink. Printing can be performed directly from a PictBridge-enabled camera as well.

As an aside, when Canon announced the Pixma line it said the same models would be sold worldwide. However, printers sold overseas include the ability to print on printable CDs and DVDs, which is a very useful feature.

This function has been disabled in U.S. models because Canon is apparently not willing to pay royalties to Phillips who own the rights to the technology. According to an Epson spokesperson, Epson is the only company allowed to sell such printers in the U.S. It leaves you wondering what the real story is? Has Epson purchased exclusive rights to the technology in the U.S. shutting out its competitors, or are the other printer manufacturers in dispute with Phillips over royalty payments?

One of Craig’s many actions is a low-key soft action. The partial action menu shows the many steps taken to enhance this image of Las Vegas model, Laeiana Forte.

Both printers include Canon’s Easy PhotoPrint software that is much simpler to use when you want to just do a straight print from a file. It provides plenty of choices for ganging up photos on one sheet and automatically scales an image to fit.

There is some question as to the longevity of prints from Canon printers, which use dye-based inks compared to pigment inks found in other photo printers. There is a lot of debate about print longevity and as we all know the way a print is mounted and displayed is the primary causes of print stability.

In all honesty, over the years I have not noticed much difference in fading of digitally produced prints compared to traditional silver-halide prints. For example, I removed an R-print from a frame the other day. It had been in there for about 12 years, and I did not realize it had faded until it was removed from the frame and I saw the original edges that were masked from light under the frame. It had not been subject to sunlight having been dis-played in an inside wall with no direct sunlight. I feel the majority of people expect prints to fade with time. For this reason, I do not worry about longevity as much as some photographers… rightly or wrongly?

Quick Software Review: Craig’s Actions
Many photographers who have be-come adept at Photoshop have created actions that automate various processes. Some have gone on to market these actions to others or even write books. Canadian photographer Craig Minielly has been selling sets of his actions he has created for over a year. I have been using several of them to soften portraits and adjust photos and they work well.

Craig has recently created a special web site (www.craigsactions.com) that visibly shows what his actions can do by showing before and after images superimposed one over the other. Currently, he has seven volumes of actions available priced from $69 to $99. Check them out, and you’ll probably find some that could save you a lot of time and help you produce better images.

Mastering Digital Printing is a book that covers every aspect of producing great prints from a variety of different types of digital printers.

Quick Book Review: Mastering Digital Printing
Some photographers are happy just to leave printing to labs. Others want a printer that produces good prints without any stress. Many of us, though, are intrigued by the technology and want to master the art and understand what it takes to produce a master print.

Harald Johnson has written a 398-page book that thoroughly covers every aspect from scanning and color managing to producing the finest possible digital prints. He shows how a good digital print is much better than a traditional silver halide print. The book (published by Thompson Course Technology, $39.99) also covers large format printers and technologies other than inkjet. Other chapters cover the art of mounting prints for display and the use of a print service bureaus. All in all, it’s an ideal book if you’re looking to improve your knowledge on how to produce great prints, whether you do it yourself or hand the task off to someone else.

John Rettie is a photojournalist who resides in Santa Barbara, CA. He has been using a camera as a professional for 35 years, a computer for 25 years, and has combined his knowledge of both for the past 12 years. Readers can contact him by email at john@johnrettie.com or by snail-mail c/o Rangefinder.