Product Description
Medium format colour inkjet printers, which sit between standard A4 and wide format production machines, fill a fairly specialised niche. Capable of printing full-bleed A3+ pages, Canon’s Pixma Pro9000 Mark II is aimed at photo enthusiasts or semi-professional photographers. Semi-pros might prefer to use it for proofing than end product, but it would also be suitable for print-on-demand applications, like sending wedding guests away with photos on the day of the big event.
Canon Pixma Pro9000 Mark II
Besides the price, the key difference between a workhorse A4 inkjet – such as the Pixma MX330 (http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2009/05/27/review_printer_canon_pixma_mx330/) we reviewed recently – and this machine, is the width of the carriage. Handling paper up to 13-inches wide, the Pixma Pro9000 MkII measures 660mm across. See how it dwarfs the adjacent DSLR in the picture. Indeed, this printer will need its own desk.
Besides the price, the key difference between a workhorse A4 inkjet – such as the Pixma MX330 (http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2009/05/27/review_printer_canon_pixma_mx330/) we reviewed recently – and this machine, is the width of the carriage. Handling paper up to 13-inches wide, the Pixma Pro9000 MkII measures 660mm across. See how it dwarfs the adjacent DSLR in the picture. Indeed, this printer will need its own desk.
To use all its features, it’s not just the width you need to worry about. In normal running, paper feeds from a near-vertical tray at the rear to a telescopic output tray at the front, but it can also be configured to take thick or other special media from the front and print it out the back. To accommodate this, a flap at the rear is folded down and two spring-loaded butterfly supports are extended. Printing this way needs space of at least the length of the paper it’s printing at both front and rear.
The printer has borrowed a feature from several of Canon’s A4 machines, in providing direct CD print, via a separate carrier, which slides in at the front of the machine. The machine can print standard CDs and the smaller, credit card-sized ones too. CD print is useful for full-colour, on-disc printing, but also for labelling the hundreds of discs of large, high-res images photographers tend to stockpile.
It’s a peculiar truth that, as inkjet printers go upmarket, they’re provided with fewer bells and whistles. There’s no LCD panel on this machine; no colour screen to preview images and not even a mono screen to set options with. There are a couple of buttons for power and paper feed, but that’s all the manual control you get.
It’s a peculiar truth that, as inkjet printers go upmarket, they’re provided with fewer bells and whistles. There’s no LCD panel on this machine; no colour screen to preview images and not even a mono screen to set options with. There are a couple of buttons for power and paper feed, but that’s all the manual control you get.
Only basic controls are accessible from the unit
Perhaps more surprisingly, there are no memory card slots, either. Presumably Canon’s argument is that a professional photographer won’t want to print straight from a memory card, without viewing and adjusting the image first on a PC or Mac screen. If that’s the case, why is there a PictBridge socket, so you can download from a camera? Most cameras have very limited PictBridge printing control and their LCD screens are inconveniently small for image proofing. Unless, of course, you’ve an LCD the size of Canon’s EOS 5D MkII (http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2009/06/08/review_camera_dslr_canon_eos_5d_markii/) that appears in publicity shots alongside this Pixma.
The only data connection is USB, but this is probably all most customers will need. Indeed, the Pixma Pro9000 Mk II isn’t an ideal machine to network, because of the many different configurations and paper setups it’ll need to work with. To set the printer up, eight separate ink cartridges are plugged into the head carrier. On top of the CMYK set, the Pixma Pro9000 Mk II uses photo cyan and photo magenta, and adds in red for improved flesh tones and green for more vivid landscapes.
Perhaps more surprisingly, there are no memory card slots, either. Presumably Canon’s argument is that a professional photographer won’t want to print straight from a memory card, without viewing and adjusting the image first on a PC or Mac screen. If that’s the case, why is there a PictBridge socket, so you can download from a camera? Most cameras have very limited PictBridge printing control and their LCD screens are inconveniently small for image proofing. Unless, of course, you’ve an LCD the size of Canon’s EOS 5D MkII (http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2009/06/08/review_camera_dslr_canon_eos_5d_markii/) that appears in publicity shots alongside this Pixma.
The only data connection is USB, but this is probably all most customers will need. Indeed, the Pixma Pro9000 Mk II isn’t an ideal machine to network, because of the many different configurations and paper setups it’ll need to work with. To set the printer up, eight separate ink cartridges are plugged into the head carrier. On top of the CMYK set, the Pixma Pro9000 Mk II uses photo cyan and photo magenta, and adds in red for improved flesh tones and green for more vivid landscapes.
The Japanese version has ten colours – extra black and grey
As well as drivers for Windows from 2000 up and OS X from 10.3.9 – no mention is made of Linux or Unix support – the Canon applications Easy-PhotoPrint EX and CD-LabelPrint are included. These are fairly useful variants of the file housekeeping and basic photo-editing applications provided with most printers, but there’s also a full copy of Adobe Photoshop Elements.
Although this is version 6, which doesn’t include things like the image element removal of the latest version 7, it’s still a very capable application for a bundle. For the lower end of the market this printer is aimed at, Photoshop Elements is handy, but for the semi-pro and pro customers, there’s a Photoshop plug-in called Easy-PhotoPrint Pro, which is possibly more useful.
Easy-PhotoPrint Pro enables you to print a variety of different, template arrangements of images and to handle RAW data directly. It works much like a print driver control panel, but supports Linear Tone, ICC and Photo Colour tone modes.
As this machine is designed primarily as a photo printer, it won't come as much of a surprise that its plain paper print speed is rubbish. In fact, our five-page text print took just under three and a half minutes and a five-page text and colour graphics print took nearer to four. If you want to print invoices, it’s best to have a mono laser as well as the Pixma Pro9000 Mk II.
As well as drivers for Windows from 2000 up and OS X from 10.3.9 – no mention is made of Linux or Unix support – the Canon applications Easy-PhotoPrint EX and CD-LabelPrint are included. These are fairly useful variants of the file housekeeping and basic photo-editing applications provided with most printers, but there’s also a full copy of Adobe Photoshop Elements.
Although this is version 6, which doesn’t include things like the image element removal of the latest version 7, it’s still a very capable application for a bundle. For the lower end of the market this printer is aimed at, Photoshop Elements is handy, but for the semi-pro and pro customers, there’s a Photoshop plug-in called Easy-PhotoPrint Pro, which is possibly more useful.
Easy-PhotoPrint Pro enables you to print a variety of different, template arrangements of images and to handle RAW data directly. It works much like a print driver control panel, but supports Linear Tone, ICC and Photo Colour tone modes.
As this machine is designed primarily as a photo printer, it won't come as much of a surprise that its plain paper print speed is rubbish. In fact, our five-page text print took just under three and a half minutes and a five-page text and colour graphics print took nearer to four. If you want to print invoices, it’s best to have a mono laser as well as the Pixma Pro9000 Mk II.
CD printing comes in handy for cataloguing too
Switch to photo paper, print images and it seems like a different machine. A 15 x 10cm print took 51 seconds via a PictBridge connection and just 42s from a PC. These are both very good times and are for standard print mode, not some optimum-speed draft, where the print quality suffers. Even when we fed a full-bleed A3 image to the Pixma Pro9000 Mk II, it completed in 1m 53s – very quick for the size.
The print-quality design aims for this machine have been well realised. By adding in the red and green inks, Canon has produced a machine that gives very natural colouring for both landscapes and portraits. There is little noticeable hue shift in any of the prints we produced, compared with the original colours.
Switch to photo paper, print images and it seems like a different machine. A 15 x 10cm print took 51 seconds via a PictBridge connection and just 42s from a PC. These are both very good times and are for standard print mode, not some optimum-speed draft, where the print quality suffers. Even when we fed a full-bleed A3 image to the Pixma Pro9000 Mk II, it completed in 1m 53s – very quick for the size.
The print-quality design aims for this machine have been well realised. By adding in the red and green inks, Canon has produced a machine that gives very natural colouring for both landscapes and portraits. There is little noticeable hue shift in any of the prints we produced, compared with the original colours.
Big and square and bordering on ugly
Detail levels are very good and the machine succeeds in reproducing detail from shadows well. In some printers these dark shades veer to black, giving muddy detail and reducing the overall fidelity. The one problem we did notice was on one of our A3 prints, where there was a hint of banding in a particularly blue area of the sky.
With eight inks to keep topped up, you’d perhaps expect this to be an expensive printer to run. However the photo colours and red and green are used primarily to tweak the main tints and should yield thousands of pages each. Even so, using Canon's yield figures for 15 x 10cm photos, produced a cost of 20p per print, which is on the high side, even when compared with other Canon printers.
“Canon is known within the professional photographer community for providing the right output tools to manage their photographic creations and the PIXMA Pro9500 Mark II Photo Printer continues to deliver on that tradition with its superior quality and archiveability,” stated Ian Macfarlane, Vice President and General Manager of the Consumer Imaging Group at Canon Canada Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Canon U.S.A., Inc.” Additionally, with the growing number of enthusiasts capturing professional-quality photographs with digital SLR cameras, it is only natural to want to maintain creative control over their photos by printing the images themselves on products like the new Canon PIXMA Pro9000 Mark II Photo Printer. These professional and emerging photographers understand and appreciate the creative control that Canon provides over image quality from capture to output.”
Software
A new Easy-PhotoPrint Pro feature incorporated into the PIXMA Pro models is Canon’s Ambient Light Correction technology which helps reduce the perceived colour difference caused by different light conditions between printing and viewing or display environments. Compatible with Windows Vista OS, Ambient Light Correction allows users to optimize print colour for the lighting conditions where the final print will be shown. Through the software, users can adjust colour to various levels of lighting conditions from daylight at 6500K to a warm white fluorescent lamp at 3000K for optimal viewing.
Both the PIXMA Pro9500 Mark II and the PIXMA Pro9000 Mark II Photo Printers come bundled with Canon’s proprietary Easy-PhotoPrint Pro software and now with Adobe PhotoShop Elements, a user-friendly photo-editing software tool. Easy-PhotoPrint Pro, which is a software plug-in designed for Adobe applications such as PhotoShop CS, CS2, CS3, or PhotoShop Elements 6 along with Canon Digital Photo Pro (DPP) software, permits one-click image transfer, simple setting controls for colour management and allows users to configure printer settings once for images on multiple sheets. A helpful feature, Easy-PhotoPrint Pro facilitates the printing of RAW image files (as a high quality TIFF or JPEG) without having to save directly from applications, like DPP.
Detail levels are very good and the machine succeeds in reproducing detail from shadows well. In some printers these dark shades veer to black, giving muddy detail and reducing the overall fidelity. The one problem we did notice was on one of our A3 prints, where there was a hint of banding in a particularly blue area of the sky.
With eight inks to keep topped up, you’d perhaps expect this to be an expensive printer to run. However the photo colours and red and green are used primarily to tweak the main tints and should yield thousands of pages each. Even so, using Canon's yield figures for 15 x 10cm photos, produced a cost of 20p per print, which is on the high side, even when compared with other Canon printers.
“Canon is known within the professional photographer community for providing the right output tools to manage their photographic creations and the PIXMA Pro9500 Mark II Photo Printer continues to deliver on that tradition with its superior quality and archiveability,” stated Ian Macfarlane, Vice President and General Manager of the Consumer Imaging Group at Canon Canada Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Canon U.S.A., Inc.” Additionally, with the growing number of enthusiasts capturing professional-quality photographs with digital SLR cameras, it is only natural to want to maintain creative control over their photos by printing the images themselves on products like the new Canon PIXMA Pro9000 Mark II Photo Printer. These professional and emerging photographers understand and appreciate the creative control that Canon provides over image quality from capture to output.”
Software
A new Easy-PhotoPrint Pro feature incorporated into the PIXMA Pro models is Canon’s Ambient Light Correction technology which helps reduce the perceived colour difference caused by different light conditions between printing and viewing or display environments. Compatible with Windows Vista OS, Ambient Light Correction allows users to optimize print colour for the lighting conditions where the final print will be shown. Through the software, users can adjust colour to various levels of lighting conditions from daylight at 6500K to a warm white fluorescent lamp at 3000K for optimal viewing.
Both the PIXMA Pro9500 Mark II and the PIXMA Pro9000 Mark II Photo Printers come bundled with Canon’s proprietary Easy-PhotoPrint Pro software and now with Adobe PhotoShop Elements, a user-friendly photo-editing software tool. Easy-PhotoPrint Pro, which is a software plug-in designed for Adobe applications such as PhotoShop CS, CS2, CS3, or PhotoShop Elements 6 along with Canon Digital Photo Pro (DPP) software, permits one-click image transfer, simple setting controls for colour management and allows users to configure printer settings once for images on multiple sheets. A helpful feature, Easy-PhotoPrint Pro facilitates the printing of RAW image files (as a high quality TIFF or JPEG) without having to save directly from applications, like DPP.
Canon LiDE700F Color Image Scanner
The new Canon LiDE700F Colour Image Scanner provides consumers with a high-speed scanning solution capable of capturing a letter-sized image – roughly the size of a large wedding photo or school portrait – at 300 dots-per-inch (dpi) in approximately 12 seconds. The scanner can capture one frame of a 35mm filmstrip at a maximum optical resolution of 9600dpi to help digitally archive customer’s older photographic film. Powered and connected via a single USB cord, the LiDE700F, includes a LED light source for low power consumption. Canon helps make scanning easier with Auto-Scan Mode, a one-touch solution where the scanner will automatically detect the type of document or image being scanned and adjust the setting accordingly. The scanner’s four easy buttons offer simple, single-touch operation for copying, scanning, and creating e-mail attachment/multi-page PDF files. The LiDE700F scanner is expected to ship to retailers in April at an estimated retail price of CAD $149.993.
The new Canon LiDE700F Colour Image Scanner provides consumers with a high-speed scanning solution capable of capturing a letter-sized image – roughly the size of a large wedding photo or school portrait – at 300 dots-per-inch (dpi) in approximately 12 seconds. The scanner can capture one frame of a 35mm filmstrip at a maximum optical resolution of 9600dpi to help digitally archive customer’s older photographic film. Powered and connected via a single USB cord, the LiDE700F, includes a LED light source for low power consumption. Canon helps make scanning easier with Auto-Scan Mode, a one-touch solution where the scanner will automatically detect the type of document or image being scanned and adjust the setting accordingly. The scanner’s four easy buttons offer simple, single-touch operation for copying, scanning, and creating e-mail attachment/multi-page PDF files. The LiDE700F scanner is expected to ship to retailers in April at an estimated retail price of CAD $149.993.
About Canon Canada Inc.
Headquartered in Mississauga, Ontario, the company employs 1,400 people at its offices nation-wide, servicing the Canadian market from coast to coast. Innovation and cutting-edge technology have been essential ingredients in Canon’s success. Canon’s leadership in imaging, optical and document management technology and solutions is based in large part on the thousands of patents the company has secured throughout its history. For the 16th consecutive year, Canon Inc. is among the top three US patent recipients.
The company’s comprehensive product line includes networked multifunction devices; digital copiers (colour and black and white); printers, scanners, image filing systems and facsimile machines; calculators, digital camcorders, digital and analogue cameras and lenses; semiconductor, broadcast and other specialized industrial products.
Canon supports programs that help preserve and protect the environment. The company instituted the Clean Earth Campaign in 1990, which assists various environmental and recycling initiatives. The Campaign has also supported leading environmental organizations, such as World Wildlife Fund – Canada and the Canon Envirothon.
The company’s comprehensive product line includes networked multifunction devices; digital copiers (colour and black and white); printers, scanners, image filing systems and facsimile machines; calculators, digital camcorders, digital and analogue cameras and lenses; semiconductor, broadcast and other specialized industrial products.
Canon supports programs that help preserve and protect the environment. The company instituted the Clean Earth Campaign in 1990, which assists various environmental and recycling initiatives. The Campaign has also supported leading environmental organizations, such as World Wildlife Fund – Canada and the Canon Envirothon.
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