Anyone using Canon IPF8300 for fine art repro on canvas and paper?

[Roscolo]

Looking at new printers. Supplier tells me HP z3200 is being discontinued. We've heard that before, but not sure I want to invest in that particular line now. Who knows what direction HP is going. What I love about the z series is the built in profiling. Not such a big deal for printing photographs, but has been a huge advantage printing prints of paintings for artists. My customers like getting 2 canvas prints today, then 2 more next month, then 3 more a year from now, and all are a perfect match. And prints on different media can be as close as possible also.

So how is the Canon IPF8300 in this regard? Anyone doing lots of fine art repro on this printer? Would I need to buy a standalone spectrophotometer profiling system? Would rather not, but willing to make the investment if needed.

Also, any other issues of note with this printer or series (like the disintegrating belt issue on HP's z series, etc.)?

Thanks

[Rob Reiter]

I've been using an 8300 for over two years and the 8100 before that. I love the printer. Fast, reliable, excellent image quality. Inks appear to be more scratch/buff resistant than Epson or HP inks and get about 20% higher ratings than Ultrachrome inks by the archival testing labs. I stock about 20 different papers-matte, photo style, canvas, Japanese papers, some fabrics, Pictorico films-all print well. I do use my own profiling hardware, but if you don't plan on using a lot of papers, having a custom profile made for what you need is quite practical. I offer that setvice as do many others mentioned in these forums.

When I've needed it, I've gotten excellent tech support from Canon, to the point of supplying free heads for a now out-of-warranty printer.

Both Epson and Canon have been on about a three year cycle for issuing a new version of their printers, so there's a good chance new models will become available for either brand in the next year, but if you have to buy one now, I'd suggest the Canon. You can often pick one up for $3k or less with the various rebates and deals.

If you have any specific questions call me and I'll try to help you.

[bill t.]

I have a very high mileage 8300 and it's doing fine.  The only machine in my building that is more reliable is the refrigerator.  Have lost very little time and aggravation to this machine.  The only time it needs attention is when I change rolls.  I don't even bother to see if the roll is lined up before making huge prints, because it always is.

My only critique is that the ink sits up on canvas surfaces a little more than with say my old 9880, which makes rolling on coatings a problem.  Spraying works fine.  Color is great, it can easily match the gamuts available from the best media.

You will need to replace one of the two heads at intervals of roughly 3000 to 8000 square feet.  Costs $450, takes 1/2 hour max and mostly all you do is sit down with cup o' Java.  That's so much more than a fair tradeoff for the endless nozzle wars I used to have with the 9880.

Somebody here once commented that the 8300 looks like it was made out of used soda pop bottles by a parsimonious elf.  Right on!  But, as of a few months ago it had outlived my 9880 and was in comparatively much better health at that milestone.  Just clean the little suction vents under the media once in a while, and you're good to go.

Edit...and I think the use of an ordinary spectro is a better idea.  I mean, 2000 patches has got to be better than the much small set the printers use, right?  And, I'm pretty sure it's important to have a lot of drying time for most media.

[Roscolo]

I've been using an 8300 for over two years and the 8100 before that. I love the printer. Fast, reliable, excellent image quality. Inks appear to be more scratch/buff resistant than Epson or HP inks and get about 20% higher ratings than Ultrachrome inks by the archival testing labs. I stock about 20 different papers-matte, photo style, canvas, Japanese papers, some fabrics, Pictorico films-all print well. I do use my own profiling hardware, but if you don't plan on using a lot of papers, having a custom profile made for what you need is quite practical. I offer that setvice as do many others mentioned in these forums.

When I've needed it, I've gotten excellent tech support from Canon, to the point of supplying free heads for a now out-of-warranty printer.

Both Epson and Canon have been on about a three year cycle for issuing a new version of their printers, so there's a good chance new models will become available for either brand in the next year, but if you have to buy one now, I'd suggest the Canon. You can often pick one up for $3k or less with the various rebates and deals.

If you have any specific questions call me and I'll try to help you.

Thank you for the generous offer to call. Doing this a little faster than I would like - thought I was dead set on an HP z3200 until yesterday - and trying to weigh the value of jobs in waiting in the hopper vs. research time.

I do not print on much different media. 90% of my jobs are on Sunset Select Matte Canvas, HP Matte Litho, HP Premium ID Satin, occasional Hahnemuhle Baryta.  I'm assuming the ipf8300 would print fine on HP Matte Litho?

Didn't think about jobbing out the profiles. Coming from the z3100, I don't understand Canon's calibration procedure with no onboard spectro, vs. HP's onboard spectro. If I understand correctly, say I do a calibration, then make a print, a year later I should be able to duplicate those results from the same image file as long as I do another calibration before making the print?

Consistency in the fine art prints is my biggest concern. Already going to have some 'splainin' to do when the Canon prints won't exactly match the HP Z prints. But nothing lasts forever.

Now if I could only use that onboard spectro in my z3100 to profile another printer!

[bill t.]

The 8300 doesn't do color calibration at all.  It adjusts the media advance to get exact lengths and remove any nozzle dithering etc.  That's what people mean when they talk about  8300 calibration.  You have to build color profiles with some external device or service.

Can't even begin to address issues with matching prints from different printers.  But yeah, I bet there will be differences at some level.  Sunset Select is a relatively low gamut media, and that's where you will probably see the greatest difference since when the gamut is low there will always be color compromises that will probably vary with the printer design.

[Roscolo]

The 8300 doesn't do color calibration at all.  It adjusts the media advance to get exact lengths and remove any nozzle dithering etc.  That's what people mean when they talk about  8300 calibration.  You have to build color profiles with some external device or service.

Got it. I guess what I'm referring to is, on the Z3100, you profile a paper. If you use that profile a year later, the results may not be exactly the same. But as long as you profile the same media again before you print, my prints have been a near perfect match. You can't tell which one was made today from the one made 3 years ago. As long as you reprofile the media before printing.

So, say I hire someone to make a profile of SunsetSelect Matte. I make a print using that profile on the ipf8300. A year passes. I need to make another print of that image on SunsetSelect Matte. Will it match and pass muster in a side-by-side comparison like it will with the z3100, or do I have to hire someone to remake the SunsetSelectMatte profile every few months?

Maybe I misunderstand what Canon means by calibration. I thought it meant if I get someone to build a profile, then I recalibrate the Canon printer before using the profile, that I could always print from that profile and get the same result as long as I recalibrate the Canon printer before making the print. If that's not how it works, the Canon is useless for me without a standalone profiling system. Which is fine, but now I have to add that cost to the printer, and I probably stick with the z3200.

[deanwork]

I have both the Z3100 and the IPF 83000 and I use and like them both a lot.

The biggest issue with my Z was having to replace the belt twice, but this printer is nearly 6 years old and still going strong like new. Both belts were done under warranty ( about once every three years). Their extended warranty is quite a bit cheaper than the Canon, almost half the price. The HP permanence on quality media is in a class all its own and was a historic achievement in my opinion, and may or may not ever be equaled again.

I love the Z series, especially for it's permanence and great black and white work. Using the Bowhas TBW rip I'm now able to match that bw on the Canon though.

Main thing about the Canon for me is its a whole lot faster so I use it most of the time. I do all kinds of media on both and do a lot of reprints over the years with no profiling problems on either printer. The Canon linearizes the whole system where the HP linearizes each paper individually. I never have to remake icc profiles on either for that. The Canon does sharper bi-directional printer which is super fast, even at 16 bit ( the HP does not really utilize 16 bit workflow.) My Hp heads last a very long time and cost only like $65.00 each ( have six of them apposed to 2 for the Canon at over $400.00 each) and can be replaced in about 5 minutes max, like the Canon.

The weak link on the Canon is that I've had to replace both heads after one year of use. However I have used the hell out of this printer and in both cases Canon sent me a new head overnight with no charge, even though they were past warranty. This is a situation that seems to be the case with a lot of users here. I have no complaints.

When it comes to tech support and software upgrades the Canon wins by a long shot. When I call Canon I get the right person on the phone immediately. They take care of my problem in an intelligent way within 5 minutes. Calling HP and getting anything done can be a long process with testing this and testing that.... and you're calling Costa Rica and a guy reading out of a book. Their not arrogant or anything, just slow. Their field technicians have always been great for me. Fortunately I rarely ever had to use the HP support within the last 3 years.

My biggest concern with HP is that their corporation seems to be in turmoil. A lot of their trillions of products are not making money so they are laying off many thousands of people. I think were moving into an era where a lot of people in the amateur market are just not printing out pictures at all anymore but rather showing them online or emailing them to family and friends. This has hurt companies like Hp and Epson that have to support so many of these small desktop units they have created over the years. Hp could abandon the fine art market altogether, who knows? That would be my guess. With a company that big they have very little attention span. My feeling is that it is between Canon and Epson now with both of them making great big printers.

[Roscolo]

I love the Z series, especially for it's permanence and great black and white work. Using the Bowhas TBW rip I'm now able to match that bw on the Canon though.

Love the B&W on the Z also. Can you elaborate (link, price, anything) on the Bowhas TBW rip? I don't know about this and apparently Google doesn't either.

Edit: Never mind. Got it. It's Bowhaus. Tx

Edit: Looks like that BowHaus TBW is Mac only. Not good.

[Roscolo]

I have both the Z3100 and the IPF 83000 and I use and like them both a lot.



Main thing about the Canon for me is its a whole lot faster so I use it most of the time. I do all kinds of media on both and do a lot of reprints over the years with no profiling problems on either printer. The Canon linearizes the whole system where the HP linearizes each paper individually. I never have to remake icc profiles on either for that.

Can I ask what system you use to profile your printers?

[deanwork]

I use the new X-Rite Pro software with the Eye One for Icc Profiles and I use the Z3100 internal Eye One for lineariztaion on that machine. I also have used the Z internal profiling software for many years and it has always done a good job. I never had any trouble with it throughout the life of the printer.

[deanwork]

That is an interesting question. In the nice review of the IPF8300 that Scott Martin wrote for his blog - ( http://www.on-sight.com/2010/04/25/canon-x300-printer-review/)
he mentioned that the new Canon inks did a much better job than the Hp Z3200 in regard to the effects of bronzing and gloss differential with the gloss fiber media he was testing.

After doing a lot of printing with both, he is correct when it comes to some media and not correct when it comes to others. But he never said he tested a lot of these papers.

My standard gloss fiber papers are the Harmon Baryta and the Harmon Baryta Warmtone. In both cases the HP and and Canon do an excellent job with the Harmon. I actually just did a direct comparison test last week and found that actually the HP with the gloss overcoat did a little better job. With the Canon, if you are working with a print with large areas of total black adjacent to areas of light value, even with the Harmon there is some slight gloss differential if you look closely. But it's very subtle. With the HP the Harmon is perfect.

Now with other gloss fiber media, like the Hahnemuhle Photorag Baryta, Innova surfaces, and especially the Canson Baryta and Ilford Gallerie Baryta, the Hp is in my opinion unacceptable due to obvious bronzing especially for black and white. Even spraying them doesn't remove all of it.  But with RC gloss papers and the Harmon Baryta the HP is a bit better. You have to weigh that against the fact that the Canon Lucia inks are more scratch resistant than both the HP or the Epson pigments.

In both cases with fiber gloss my general procedure is to spray them with the Hahnemuhle uv coating if they are to be handled in portfolios, etc.  If they are going straight into frames it doesn't matter in any case, unless you are wanting to add uv protection to the white paper base, which is a good idea for many of these papers.

All things considered the Harmon Baryta is so good with both printers that I don't even think about it anymore. But if I have to use another fiber gloss paper ( which I almost never do) I will certainly use the Canon. But since the Canon is so much faster and I use it with TBW for bw on the Harmon, I use it most of the time anyway :-) .

john

I've been flirting with an IPF8300 for the last couple of years now but those 3 times I've tested the printer, here in the UK and Germany, printing on semi gloss/satin media, bronzing and gloss differential were unacceptable so in the end I went for an Z3200 again. Don't know what HP will be doing, just waiting for Photokina but I know that I need a different make printer for media that the Z3200 can't handle.

John, from your experience, how is the IPF8300 coping with bronzing/gloss differential compared to Z3200? What semi gloss/satin papers do you print on the 8300?

Thanks

[JeffKohn]

The 8300 doesn't do color calibration at all.  It adjusts the media advance to get exact lengths and remove any nozzle dithering etc.  That's what people mean when they talk about  8300 calibration.

This is not correct. You can do feed adjustment when creating a custom media type for a paper, and you can also do an advanced head alignment for your most used paper. But neither of these are the same thing as the hardware calibration feature, which does have to do with color consistency. The hardware calibration is not the same as profiling, but it does ensure the printer is in a consistent state with the originally calibrated state.

You have to build color profiles with some external device or service.

This is true, but profiling and calibration are two different things, although they go hand in hand. You should have recently run a hardware calibration before doing any profiling, as well as doing a hardware calibration periodically to keep the printer from "drifiting" away from from calibration. I've seen some say they only feel it's needed once or twice a year, but I run it every 3 months or so. This way you don't have to re-do your ICC profiles to ensure consistent output.

It's true you need a separate profiling solution, as there's no built-in profiling such as the HP's have. I actually think that's a good thing, because I don't want to pay for a new spectro for every printer (which is what you're doing with HP). I'd much rather buy one profiling solution that I can use with every printer I own or will own. Also, the i1Profiler application that XRite is selling now has a better profiling engine than the one included with the HP printers (which is based on the older ProfileMaker engine).

[Czornyj]

Also, the i1Profiler application that XRite is selling now has a better profiling engine than the one included with the HP printers (which is based on the older ProfileMaker engine).

...not to mention, that new i1Pro 2 is also noticeably better than its predecessor.

[Jeff Magidson]

...not to mention, that new i1Pro 2 is also noticeably better than its predecessor.

and 50% more expensive

[Roscolo]

I have both the Z3100 and the IPF 83000 and I use and like them both a lot.

Have you ever run HP Premium ID Satin through the Canon? Or HP Matte Litho? How do they look?

Tx

[deanwork]

I would never use the HP "Premium Satin" or "Premium Gloss" on any printer after I tested rolls of it. It's got the ugliest white base color I've ever seen ( next to Hahnemuhle Fine Art Baryta, that is pink). It is so full of crude oba brighteners that is a strange bluish-cyan color, that I don't think it would last fifteen minutes in strong daylight. It is so thin it gets dinged up easy too.  What I used on the HP was the Pro Satin which is very lovely with the best gamut your are probably going to see with those inks and its quite durable and heavy. Behind glass it looks like a really nice fiber gloss media.  At least I used it until I saw the Aardenburg test results after a year that I sent in for it. Those obas on the Pro Satin aren't very stable either, though much better than the Premium Satin which is not premium at all. I love these marketing words "premium" "pro", "enhanced", "fine art". etc. They are usually a joke. Whenever I hear those words I hold on to my wallet.

What I switched to on all of these printers for rc work is the Canon HW Satin. It is thicker and holds up significantly better than the others in the fade tests. The Epson Luster is holding up very well also and works fine on either the Canon or the HP. I just personally don't like that mechanical pebbly texture of Luster.

As for the inexpensive matt papers, they all make comparable surfaces. I use the Canon HW matte for a cheap matte paper for the few times I need one. It is essentially the same thing as the HP version or the Epson Enhanced Matte, none of them holding up well in fade tests due to the cheap brighteners, but they all look fine for short term use. If you don't believe me tape one of them on a window and keep another in the dark and compare the base color in a week or two.

You don't "pay extra" for the Eye One in the Z series. They are essentially giving you that technology for free if you compare the price point with the other companies. And, I think it is a damn well functioning thing to have for free. How much would Epson or Canon charge you for something like that IF they had it worked out to offer in the first place? Course it will be a moot point if they are discontinued with HPs downsizing.



j

[JeffKohn]

You don't "pay extra" for the Eye One in the Z series. They are essentially giving you that technology for free if you compare the price point with the other companies.

Now maybe (I haven't checked HP prices recently), but only because those printers are heavily discounted due to being pretty old and the Canon/Epson models have been refreshed since the HP's were released. When the HP's first came out they carried about a 1K price premium compared to similar Canon models if I recall correctly.

[deanwork]

They all have discounts available frequently, but often not at the same time.

I bought my HP before the recession and I got it for the same price the others were going for. It was common to get that price. That was a time when the Epson rep at Photo Expo Ny told me I should buy two of the 9800s, one for MK and one for PK if I wanted to use both matte and gloss papers regularly. I told him F that, when both the HP and the first Canon IPF had auto switching on the fly a few yards away from his booth. The Epson reps just smirked when I asked him when they would offer such an essential thing and told me not to hold my breath, and he was right about that. At that time the first Canons were really dotty with a fairly poor dither and their black and white capability was way behind HP. They caught up fast and made improvements in just about every area .

I bought my Epson 9890 for a little over 3 grand, and the Canon 8300 for the same price six months earlier. At that time the Z3200 was going for the same prices as they were and sometimes less. There was a price war going on, which might occur again if the economy continues to bump along the bottom or even get worse.

Now maybe (I haven't checked HP prices recently), but only because those printers are heavily discounted due to being pretty old and the Canon/Epson models have been refreshed since the HP's were released. When the HP's first came out they carried about a 1K price premium compared to similar Canon models if I recall correctly.

[Roscolo]

I would never use the HP "Premium Satin" or "Premium Gloss" on any printer after I tested rolls of it. It's got the ugliest white base color I've ever seen ( next to Hahnemuhle Fine Art Baryta, that is pink).


j

I've found the HP Prem ID Satin to be outstanding for B&W work. I've printed B&W large format work on that paper at 40"x50", framed, awesome. Wilhelm shows amazing longevity of the HP inks on the HP Satin. Hope I can run it through the Canon because I just bought an ipf8300. Curious how my B&W's will look printed on the Canon as opposed to the z3100. Guess I'll be finding out soon enough.

[deanwork]

You need the True Black and White software for the Canon and you need an Eye One to relinearze one of the existing curves for gloss papers. That is essential I see after doing it.

Then you have something as good or better than the Hp for BW.

Wilhelm's tests for these papers are a distortion. What Wilhelm has not done, and he knows better, is to show how the oba content of these inexpensive papers totally change the color of the paper base as well as the high values of all the hues. He does tell you to stay from papers with a lot of oba, but that is NOT reflected in his "years of display" but in a tiny little footnote down at the bottom of the test chart.

 If you don't believe me go to Aardenburg Imaging, the only place where it is done right, and compare all of these gloss papers and you will see how poorly all of the HP gloss papers are holding up compared to Epson Luster, Canon Satin, Ilford Gallerie, Canson Baryta, Harmon Baryta. There is a very big difference and you'd never see that on Wilhelm's site. He still gives good ratings to Epson Enhanced Matte that we know fails very quickly in daylight.  Anything as bluish as the HP "Premium" Satin is going to go gray, it just will.