Canon Pro 9000 Mk II - Paper recommendations.

[Craig Arnold]

I've been hemming and hawing about doing my own printing for ages now. Always put off by the high initial cost for someone who does very moderate volumes. However in the Black Friday sales and with £100 cashback from Canon I saw I could get a Pro 9000 MkII for only £169.

That was just too good an offer to pass up. I realise that the dye-based inks have some disadvantages, but some advantages too - not least in terms of lower cost.

I have installed the printer, and find that now that I have a colour-profiled Eizo monitor, and printing direct from Lightroom I am extremely happy with the results. Every bit as good as most of the online printing services I have used, and no more expensive.

So far I have only tried two of the Canon papers - Photo Rag (which is just the matte Hahnemuhle 188gsm rebadged) and Canon's Pro Photo Paper 2 glossy (and plasticky) media. Colour accuracy is excellent, certainly good enough for my purposes.

However I find myself wondering what other non-Canon papers I can use with the dye-based inks. Does anyone have any recommendations? And hopefully a link to a website where I might be able to download some profiles too.

I could certainly live with the Canon papers if I had to, using the glossy behind glass and the photo rag for non-mounted prints. But it would be great to get the benefit of someone else's experimentation with papers that work nicely with the Chromalife inks.

Thanks,
Craig

[ChasP505]

I've heard that the Ilford Galerie Classic Pearl and Gloss work well with the 9000mkII.  I use them with my old HP, which has a similar dye inkset.  Using the Ilford supplied profiles and media settings, they produce a slightly warmer print than my HP paper.  Very nice portrait prints.

http://www.ilford.com/en/products/galerie/classic/classicMedia.asp

[MHMG]

I second the recommendation by Chas to use the Ilford Classic papers. Also, give any of the Hp "Premium Plus" photo papers a try. Both Ilford Classic and HP Premium Plus Photo papers are swellable papers. If you are concerned about lightfastness on display and also gas fade resistance, you will want to stick with swellable papers for the Canon 9000 printer. The black dye in particular really seems to fade badly on microporous papers. It turns reddish and lighter, so faded prints will look strangely posterized in the shadows because the black dye is only feathered into the deepest (almost totally black) tones.  That said, one downside of swellable papers is that the Canon 9000 MarkII printer is able to print fast enough to overwhelm the rate at which a swellable paper can suck up the dye. When that happens you will see some image mottle (some people call it "pooling") in the darker regions that require high ink load. To minimize this problem, try to slow the print speed down by choosing settings which make the printer run slower, e.g., highest resolution and quality modes and also unidirectional printing (if it has that option, I'm not sure if it does).


cheers,
Mark
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com

[Craig Arnold]

Thanks very much.

I'll definitely try the Ilford Classic papers.

[RHPS]

I second what Mark siad about the Ilford Classic papers - my experience (with a venerable S9000) is that you will probably get pooling on the Classic Gloss. I found the Classic Pearl didn't show the effect. Maybe it was there but hidden by the slight texture - at any rate it was very acceptable and gave very nice prints.

[Mac Mahon]

Craig

FWIW I've been using Ilford Galerie Smooth Pearl almost exclusively on my Pro9000.  Couldn't be happier.

Cheers
Tim

[Craig Arnold]

Thanks!

I have also found that there are profiles on the Hahnemuhle website for almost all their papers, including the baryta ones.

H is a bit pricey, but it's a nice option.