Canon 9500 Mk II tips

[BradH]

My Canon ipf5000 died a month ago.  Unfortunately Canon has not released a ipf5300 for some reason, or I would have gotten that.  So I got a Pixma 9500 II.

Canon still doesn't seem to know how to make good software, or documentation.

I had been selecting the Pixma 9500 II driver with the print setting set to High, and I got good, but not great prints.  However, I was getting poor prints using matte (Fine Art) paper.

After playing around in the driver settings, I found there is one more higher level of detail than 'High'.  If you set the Detail to custom, you can select that higher level.  Why that wouldn't be default, or even an option from the 'English' drop-down selector, is plain dumb for a 'Pro' printer.  But it still didn't make great prints.  Finally I decided to try the 9500 II XPS option with ultra-high detail and WOW - perfect prints.

Now we just need to convince Canon to let us use the whole paper using the Fine Art setting.  Those large margins are just plain unacceptable for a 'Pro' printer designed for Fine Art and Matte papers (as opposed to the 9000 II, which was designed for glossy papers).  They should allow that option and simply say the warrenty on the print head is void if used.  They shoud easly be able record if Fine Art and regular 8x11 paper is selected.


Brad

[Deepsouth]

My Canon ipf5000 died a month ago.  Unfortunately Canon has not released a ipf5300 for some reason, or I would have gotten that.  So I got a Pixma 9500 II.

Canon still doesn't seem to know how to make good software, or documentation.

I had been selecting the Pixma 9500 II driver with the print setting set to High, and I got good, but not great prints.  However, I was getting poor prints using matte (Fine Art) paper.

After playing around in the driver settings, I found there is one more higher level of detail than 'High'.  If you set the Detail to custom, you can select that higher level.  Why that wouldn't be default, or even an option from the 'English' drop-down selector, is plain dumb for a 'Pro' printer.  But it still didn't make great prints.  Finally I decided to try the 9500 II XPS option with ultra-high detail and WOW - perfect prints.

Now we just need to convince Canon to let us use the whole paper using the Fine Art setting.  Those large margins are just plain unacceptable for a 'Pro' printer designed for Fine Art and Matte papers (as opposed to the 9000 II, which was designed for glossy papers).  They should allow that option and simply say the warrenty on the print head is void if used.  They shoud easly be able record if Fine Art and regular 8x11 paper is selected.


Brad

There have been several discussions here about the 9500, and reviewing them might help you understand what you have, and what you don't. You can trick the printer into borderless (or smaller than 35 mm margin) printing by specifying Photo Matte. Then you must adjust the settings to get the desired output. Third-party profiles are your best bet, the ones that ship with the printer are not very good. There's a thread about that on this forum, as well.

The 9000/9500s are indeed capable of fine results. However they are niche products wedged between the commodity-grade home/office inkjets and the pro gear. Canon is not interested in making any constructive changes in the 9500 for such a small user base, and many users (maybe all?) have asked.  Their issue with the 35 mm margin is not the heads, BTW. It is their concern that fine art paper will wick up ink at the edges if borderless is allowed. I've not had that happen, but it is conceivable. Why a 35mm margin is required as opposed to, say, a 10mm margin is a mystery.

I have used many different media with my 9500 and gotten nice results, including on glossy.

Get to know your 9500 and enjoy it for what it is.

[BradH]

There have been several discussions here about the 9500, and reviewing them might help you understand what you have, and what you don't. You can trick the printer into borderless (or smaller than 35 mm margin) printing by specifying Photo Matte. Then you must adjust the settings to get the desired output. Third-party profiles are your best bet, the ones that ship with the printer are not very good. There's a thread about that on this forum, as well.

Hmm, I tried doing that myself, but couldn't get the same output as the Fine Art setting yet.  I'll have to keep trying I guess.  Other than threads just mentioning it as a possiblity, I haven't found any threads where the user said they successfully got it to work with equivlent results.  Have you done it?  Was it simply a matter of darkness or black saturation?

The 9000/9500s are indeed capable of fine results. However they are niche products wedged between the commodity-grade home/office inkjets and the pro gear. Canon is not interested in making any constructive changes in the 9500 for such a small user base, and many users (maybe all?) have asked.  Their issue with the 35 mm margin is not the heads, BTW. It is their concern that fine art paper will wick up ink at the edges if borderless is allowed. I've not had that happen, but it is conceivable. Why a 35mm margin is required as opposed to, say, a 10mm margin is a mystery.

Yeah, but I read that because the paper edges may wick up, it will cause head-strikes.

I  guess one of my points is, why go to the all the work to design and make these printers, even a Mk II version, for obiviously the dedicated hobbists, be it photo or graphic arts, and then drop the ball for the last bit of polish and customer satisfaction.  The only reason I've chosen Canon for my last two printers is because of Epson's stupid head-clogging and black ink switching, which they still can't seem to fix after all these years.  If Epson ever finally listens to their customers, Canon and HP could be looking at a lot of defections if they don't try and cultivate a dedicated user base.

[Deepsouth]

Hmm, I tried doing that myself, but couldn't get the same output as the Fine Art setting yet.  I'll have to keep trying I guess.  Other than threads just mentioning it as a possiblity, I haven't found any threads where the user said they successfully got it to work with equivlent results.  Have you done it?  Was it simply a matter of darkness or black saturation?




Yeah, but I read that because the paper edges may wick up, it will cause head-strikes.

I  guess one of my points is, why go to the all the work to design and make these printers, even a Mk II version, for obiviously the dedicated hobbists, be it photo or graphic arts, and then drop the ball for the last bit of polish and customer satisfaction.  The only reason I've chosen Canon for my last two printers is because of Epson's stupid head-clogging and black ink switching, which they still can't seem to fix after all these years.  If Epson ever finally listens to their customers, Canon and HP could be looking at a lot of defections if they don't try and cultivate a dedicated user base.

I have done it by selecting Photo Matte and using a third-party profile for Canon Fine Art Paper. It took some tweaking of saturation (in the driver control Intensity slider) to make it work. I might add that I did that in Corel PhotoPaint 9, not PS. I don't care for how PS slices & dices the printer driver. PhotoPaint lets you go directly to it and make adjustments there.

From my time here and as a user of Epson and Canon photo printers, I don't think any of the Big Three have it right for the prosumer 13 inch carriage market. I have heard (but not confirmed, as far as I know) that HP is exiting the prosumer printer market. To generalize, my experience has been that Epsons are finicky and temperamental but there is larger user base for them so there are more profiles and work-arounds. Canons give better default results, especially on their own media and are more conservative of ink, but there is a smaller user base and Canon Pixma Pro tech support is a very small band of people.  Either brand is capable of superb results if you take the time to learn the printer _and_the support base out there. HP I know nothing of, but again, this forum has cussed and discussed 'em all, so there are many HP threads. My last experience with HP photo printers was _the_ HP PhotoPrinter, so that tells you how old that experience is!

If I printed more, I'd buy a 17 inch machine and step up to a bigger world of support and media. As it is, my very light printing load is just enough to justify a 13 inch system. I probably am going to a large flat panel digital picture frame system (with smaller networked frames) in the next few years and will stop printing anything other than greeting cards, except for a very few people who want 18 x 12 prints.

[DiegoL]

BradH
I' could not get top results from my 9500 mark ii. I'm new in jet printers.
What do you mean with "Finally I decided to try the 9500 II XPS option with ultra-high detail and WOW - perfect prints"? What's the XPS option? I could not find any XPS on the menu. Help me ! ! !

Thank you.

[Bill Kramer]

The XPS is Canon's better driver for the printer.  They have the standard driver and the XPS.  You can download the latest version from Canon's support. 
It seems odd, but the printer has two drivers.  The standard driver has more consumer options and the XPS is set up for serious printing.  Both drivers, if installed, will show up in the Windows printer dialog box.