Thanks. The photos from that AIO printer were refrigerator caliber but nothing more. I'd like something a little better but these prices sound a lot easier to manage. I've looked at that Pixma Pro-100 before and that might be about the level of printer I need. If I need really big or canvas I still get that done from a service.
What's the catch for the Pixma Pro-100? Ink? Calibration? Reliability?
The Pro-100 is a great little dye-based photo printer and, with Canon RC photo papers, has longevity meeting and even exceeding traditional RA-4 process silver halide color photos (.e.g, Fuji Crystal Archive II). The "catch" if one can call it that, is the Pro-100's sweet spot is indeed RC photo media. If you want to print on RC media and mimic the look of traditional photo finished prints, then the Pro-100 will fool almost everyone used to viewing traditional photo finished prints because that's what it's designed to do. However, the Pro-100 is not well suited for printing on other media like plain paper or fine art matte papers (restrictive margins, inferior tone and color on those media compared to other pigmented ink printers).
If you want to have more versatile media handling and have a printer that can serve as a plain paper office printer in a pinch as well, then consider the Epson SC P400. It is competent with RC and non RC papers, pretty much any media you can feed it including plain office papers so, it can pinch hit when you need a document printed rather than a photo. Unlike the Epson SC P600, it can switch on the fly between MK and PK inks without wasting ink. P600 exhibits less clogging, but P400 is not bad, and total cost of ownership is less than the P600. And the P400 has best-in-class gloss optimizer that places its image aesthetics on glossy/luster type RC photo media right up there with the Canon Pro-100. Plus, it's a pigmented ink printer, so print longevity is superior to the Pro-100's dye-based prints. The P400 also uses red and orange inks to extend color gamuts in reds and oranges plus smooth the printed dot structure nicely, especially in the all important skin tone colors. The "catch" for the P400 is that it does not have any photo grey inks, only black ink which gets used only in the deepest shadows of the prints. As such, although amateur printmakers will probably be very happy with B&W output on the P400, a discerning printmaker will prefer the B&W output and print to print consistency from the P600 because the P600 has the photo grey ink channels that help to deliver better grayscale neutrality and tonal smoothness. That said, a discerning printmaker would also most likely have the ability to roll his/her own custom ICC profiles, and if you raise the game to custom profile a P400, then it's b&W output can be excellent whereas out of the box B&W with generic ICC profiles only it shows a tiny little amount more of print-to-print variation, especially over longer time frames where ink cartridge changes occur.
I actually own aCanon Pro-100, an Epson SC P400 and an Epson SC P600. All three have aspect to them I really like. Although I prefer the longevity of pigment ink prints, I have never liked any amount of bronzing and gloss differential that goes hand in hand to varying degrees with all pigment printers which don't have a gloss optimizer ink channel. So, with P600 on gloss/luster media I typically have had to resort to print sprays like Hahnemuhle Protective Spray to eliminate essentially all traces of bronzing and gloss differential. Nowadays, I just coat the P600 glossy prints using the gloss optimizer in the P400 by sending the P600 finished print through a second pass in the P400. Tell the P400 to print a blank white page, and it will dutifully coat gloss optimizer only over the P600 print output, thus eliminating the need for a post treatment with a spray can method.
cheers,
Mark
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com
