Canon iPF6300 review
- Part 2

Part one of the review looked at setting up the iPF6300, paper handling, printing from Photoshop and some example panoramic prints.

In this second part I'll look at ink changing, the various utility software, profiling and print samples in colour and B/W.

I'll finish with a round up of my conclusions and attempt to summarise some of the key points from what is one of our longest reviews to date.

Ink changing

If you're moving to a large format, up from a desktop printer, then one of the things you'll notice (apart from the bulk of the printer) is the size of the ink cartridges.

12 of them, each larger than the full set for a desktop printer. With each cartridge holding 130ml of ink, the printer has one and a half litres of ink sitting in it.

I should perhaps say that it's the replacement cartridges that have 130ml.

The printer ships with 'starter cartridges' at 90ml. This caught me out when the first cartridge needed changing alarmingly quickly - some ink is used in priming the system, so expect to be ordering replacement carts before too long.

The printer display at the right shows all inks at the 60% level, with two at 40% and one at 100%

I'll come back to this, but suffice to say, these values are 'indicative' levels...

You get a series of warnings about ink levels when a cartridge gets low.

Initial ones can be dismissed, but eventually the printer stops printing and you are prompted to change inks.

At this point there are still a few ml of ink in the cartridge, so taking it out and replacing it will enable printing to continue - think of this as a last warning to get more ink, you are running on a very small reserve.

Replacing cartridges is a simple job - it takes longer to remove the packaging round a new cartridge than to change it.

The printer display shows a basic guide to the process.

Open the cover
Take out cartridge where light is flashing
Put in new cartridge

Move your mouse over the two images below to see.

These printers are designed for a busy high use environment and show some nice design features aimed at ease of use.

 

 

Last time I looked at the iPF6100, I pulled apart an empty cartridge to establish the tiny amount of in left.

The similarity in physical design meant I was happy to trust a shake of the old cart to confirm it was properly empty - less mess than taking one apart...

Waste ink is collected in a maintenance tank (MC-16) which is the same one used in the 6100 we looked at last year (6100 shown below).

I'll discuss ink usage and monitoring later, but in general, the iPF6300 seems to be pretty thrifty in using ink for cleaning and the like.

Having got through over half a litre of ink during testing, the maintenance tank level indicator didn't move (another issue I'll discuss later).

Print heads

There are two print heads, with six colour inks per head.

Canon ink jet printers work by momentarily heating tiny amounts of ink in each jet, expelling a drop of ink towards the paper. This process also changes the ink slightly, making what you get on the paper not quite the same as what's in the cart.

Such features are always welcome to marketing departments, but the upshot is that the ink holds to the paper well, and in some rough and ready testing, did seem more resistant to abrasion and rough handling than the previous version in the iPF6100

The print heads are rated as a 'consumables' with each rated for several litres of ink running through them.

There is a display option (right) to show how much use the head has had.

It seems that in this case, some 34 billion dots have been printed and the head has been in place since the start of the century - hmm... I'm minded to question the accuracy of this particular display ;-)

We didn't have a printer long enough to require a head change, but it looks to be a pretty straightforward process.

The printers run regular cleaning cycles, dependent on both usage (including time switched off) and ongoing self testing. This will use small amounts of ink, so expect levels to gradually drop over time.

Utility software

The printer comes with a collection of software in addition to the drivers and Photoshop plugin mentioned earlier.

I'll start with what I feel is an important improvement from the previous version - the media configuration tool (MCT).

As I mentioned earlier, the printer comes with a vast collection of media types pre-installed. So many, that if I had a roll of each one, I'd have no room in our printer room for anything else.

Fortunately you can prune this list to just those you use with the MCT.

You can also add new media types - all the usual Canon ones and third party ones too.

I'll show some of the options for adding a new paper to the ones available in the printer.

This new configuration is downloaded to the printer, and is then available to anyone using the printer.

Note that this is not the same as an ICC printer profile - think of this as customising your media settings, before you get anywhere near profiling.

I'm using an A4 box of thick cotton rag paper I've had sitting round the print room for ages (I just don't print A4 very often).

You start with choosing a paper type to base your new settings upon.

If you're not sure, then you can enter the weight or thickness of the paper.

The box says it's 300gsm.

Given the limited number of paper mills producing such media, I've a pretty good idea of who made it and their own version (and Canon's branded version too)

I'll ignore that though, and just proceed to see how it goes...

In a welcome change from the previous version of the MCT, you can now name your paper.

You can also specify the paper source.

Note though, that front feeding is only an option for thick (board type) media, so you are limited to roll and manual feed tray for this paper.

You should also make a note to check margin sizes the first time you use the paper, since different types have default limitations on print area.

Many of these setting can be customised and over-ridden, but I wasted a few sheets of paper finding this out...

Print quality is dependant on a lot of different factors for new paper types. One of these is the way the printer feeds the paper.

Fortunately, there is an automated adjustment available, that amongst other things minimises any potential banding.

Next up are a whole load of options that affect how much ink is going to be used when printing.

I've written before, just how important it is to use the correct media settings when profiling and subsequently printing.

With many printers, you just get a basic set of paper options, but here you can make test prints to see the effects of different ink limits.

This isn't the full range of settings that you get in some RIP software, but its a big advance and one less reason for me to choose a full RIP if I was using this printer for my work.

There is useful help available in the software, but this is not described in the installed PDF printer manual. It's easy to use, but does benefit from actually understanding what it is you are doing (and why).

It's worth noting that you can use your own test print for these prints.

Here are the ink limit test prints and feed adjustment prints (stripes).

Now the tricky bit - deciding which media setting is best.

You get to set ink levels, head height and vacuum strength.

With this paper, there was not a lot of difference in the test images.

I keep a small pocket microscope in the print room, to check print detail.

With it I could see signs of ink bleeding at high levels.

You might want to print your own target and measure ink densities when setting up an important paper, but for this test, the Canon Standard Paper setting worked just fine (I did say I suspected who made the paper)

The MCT summarises the settings chosen for this paper, for you to confirm before creating the paper type.

Some paper types do have restrictions, so check to see what is suggested.

This paper, for example, does not support borderless printing.

Once uploaded to the printer - it becomes another paper option in the printer and driver menus.

There are also the various 'special' settings available - I've seen these suggested for printing with various third party media, they were present in the software for the older printers, so may still be required for compatibility purposes.

A useful additional function of the MCT is to save and load media settings, so that once set, a paper supplier could supply both profiles and media settings for one of their papers.

Other software

Do remember that I'm mainly looking at this printer from the point of view of a photographer and fine art printer. Thus I'm concentrating on the features I'd actually use as a professional photographer.

Software is supplied for direct printing from Canon's DPP photo processing application, however I rarely ever use it, and never for printing.

There is also a software tool for measuring lighting sources (with an i1 pro spectrophotometer) and using the resulting measurement file to adjust the printer output. On the Mac, the measurement file is an XML file that includes the colour temperature and brightness of the illumination.

It seems however that this option is not for when using ICC profiles for colour matching - since I only print via profiles, there is nowhere to make use of this info - apart from the fact that I'd normally build special profiles for odd illumination conditions if warranted.

I did use the firmware update tool to update the printer firmware - it worked without any difficulty. If you update firmware, then it is worthwhile recalibrating the printer, since in the past I've seen it suggested that firmware changes can alter a printer's performance.

On Windows PCs there is also some poster printing software and detailed usage and cost accounting software.

The web interface

The printer runs web server software that you can connect to from a web browser.

It shows printer status, settings and recent job information.

Essentially it's a remote interface to the printer that can be a bit more convenient to use than picking your way through the printer's own menus.

As with any web interface, be careful if you alter network settings, since you can easily cause the connection to the server from your browser to be broken.

Just for the sake of it, I managed to connect to the printer via a VPN connection to our network, from my iPhone, whilst sitting in the pub. I'm not entirely sure how this would be of use, but it seemed a neat trick at the time.

If you've the iPF6350, with built in hard disk, there is quite a lot of historical print job information available, and you can reprint jobs. The iPF6300 retains information on the last dozen jobs, but not the actual print data.

The screen shot below shows a print underway.

Printer driver utilities

This aspect is relatively specific to the Apple Mac driver, however, the functionality is, I believe, present in Windows driver software too. Note that if you use the print plugin, some of these options are included in its settings.

The printer monitor did get confused on occasions, but seemed unaffected by the random characters...

There is quite a lot of functionality in this software, so I'd suggest you explore what's there on your own system.

The print job shown is the same one in the web view above.

I never needed to perform any cleaning during the month I had the printer.

Printhead adjustment is carried out when installing the print heads - this should not normally be needed, however I carried out the adjustment after the printer had been delivered in the back seat of a car.

The paper feed adjustment (output shown below) is similarly not a regular adjustment.

The printer information shows the same information that you can see via the front panel.

Both showing a 24" roll of Canon Satin Photo paper.

There are lots of printouts available from this menu - do check that you've not still got an expensive art paper loaded before selecting a print.

More information includes details of previous print jobs.

The ink usage per colour is recorded to one thousandth of a ml. This compares rather well to the front panel display that shows ink left in the tanks in 20% increments.

Presumably someone at Canon thought that potentially seeing lots of cartridges jump from 100% full to 80% full at some point, with perhaps one small print triggering the shift, would be a confidence inspiring feature for new users... Do I want a fuel indicator in my car that goes from 1/5 full to empty in one step? I think not.

The job log can be inspected any time, but with the iPF6300, older information is lost as new jobs are added.

Two example print jobs are shown in the screen grab below.

I noticed that although printouts were both on a glossy paper, a small amount of matte black ink was consumed. On further investigation I was told that this reflects small amounts used in cleaning and general operation, not for actual printing.

All very good. You can print out the information as well.

Now it so happens that the minutiae of ink usage are generally of academic interest only for my work.

It's print quality that counts, so if a 20% reduction in ink usage costs made a significant impact on my business's bottom line, it just tells me that I'm not charging nearly enough for my prints.

I do appreciate that this attitude is perhaps not widespread and Canon provide software that allows for much more detailed analysis of your costs.

That is, unless you use a Mac - seemingly someone in Canon thought that if you use a Mac, you're not interested in such mundane matters as media costs, so the Accounting software is Windows only.

This from Canon...

The Accounting Manager serves as a powerful feature, used for accurate management of printing costs and other information that is increasingly important in today's economic environment. With Accounting Manager feature you can track how much ink and paper is being consumed when printing large format output. Costs can be assigned to the ink and paper to determine expenses based on your own "Cost of goods". Each individual ink tank can have its own cost associated to it, as well as a variety of different paper types. The user can also input a variable cost that will be added to the total of the print cost. The data is exportable to a .csv format for Microsoft Excel so the data can be used for billing purposes. This feature will allow you to determine the cost of each print based on your actual cost.

Note to Canon - Mac users do dull stuff with spreadsheets too! :-)

On costs of use...

The printer provides detailed information on the amounts of ink used, so it should be relatively easy to work out your real print costs.

How you then use this to fit into your business in a profitable way, is an entirely different matter. At Northlight, our printing contributes to the business in many less direct ways than just print sales.

Profiling

As I've mentioned, I usually print all my colour images using ICC profiles for the particular printer/paper that I'm using. Black and white is a bit different so I'll look at that later.

The new custom media settings are an excellent advance in producing top quality prints without the need for extra RIP software to drive your printer (RIPs are not cheap either)

One other feature of the printer I'll mention before going on to profiling is the built in calibration option.

Printers vary between individual units and as they wear.

Since the print heads are replaceable, it's important to be able to get the printer to a known state.

This gives me confidence that a profile I've made for one iPF6300 should give good results on a second one.

The calibration is carried out by printing a test pattern (shown below) and measuring the relative densities of the different inks - the print head mechanism has a number of sensors used for positioning and print measurement.

This isn't an ICC profiling solution, such as is found in some other printers, but is an important step in getting good quality and consistent printing.

It's important that you calibrate to a known consistent paper type.

Some suppliers will provide a roll of paper specifically for this.

Load the paper, do the calibration and then unload the paper, putting it back into a bag/box for next time.

I used Canon's Satin Photo 240g paper for the test here, although if it was my own printer, I'd want a known quality proofing paper that won't change specifications from one roll to the next.

The printer remembers its calibration data.

The picture below shows two profiling targets, printed out and being left to dry overnight.

I'm told that the latest inks dry down very quickly and that even after half an hour, there is little change.

That's as maybe, but I've always taken the approach that overnight won't hurt things.

I produced a range of profiles for papers using a i1 iSis for measurement, and ProfileMaker Pro V5 for making the profiles.

I'll not go into all the numbers here, but I found the printer very easy to profile, with not only a larger gamut than the iPF6100, but smoother gradations in shadow areas.

Bronzing was less pronounced in areas of strong colour, and as you can see in the prints above, gloss differential did not intrude into prints, particularly on the satin paper I used for the PMD panoramic print.

The supplied profiles were all of good quality and would meet the needs of many users, and probably work just as well for exacting users if you didn't tell them.

As I'll mention in the conclusions, it's getting very difficult to see glaring differences between printers - if you're interested in getting a printer this size, have a look at some example prints and see what you think.

One area where the numbers really do matter is in proofing. Canon tell me that a lot of the improvements in this printer are aimed at the very critical proofing market.

There are a number of different levels of print quality available, and the supplied profiles come with versions for these

Prints

A recurring difficulty when writing printer reviews, is that unless you come round to our office and wade through the huge piles of test prints, much of what I say about print quality has to be slightly subjective.

I prefer not go down the road that some reviewers take with vast tables of data and pretty gamut volume pictures - for these are frequently meaningless unless there is a lot of supporting information to allow you to usefully interpret the data for your own uses.

As before, I've two test images I'll always try early on in testing. The more often I print these images, the more often I can get to spot differences and changes.

My initial use of these two test images shows up more obvious faults in printer performance (B/W and colour).

These test images (and many others) are available for free download on this site.

The iPF6300 offers a number of higher precision modes of printing.

During testing of printers I often use the excellent ImageNest page layout software [ImageNest review], since it works with the normal print drivers and allows me to print a collection of images on one sheet at particular settings.

In the screen shot below, I'm printing a collection of test images (in different colour spaces) on roll paper with most controls turned up to maximum quality

The driver is set to 'save paper' where it trims the paper after printing the images, so it doesn't print out the several feet of blank paper in the print preview above.

I repeated the print with 'high quality' rather than 'highest' settings.

As yet, no visitor to the office has been able to say which is which. With practice, I'm convinced I can see a few differences, but to be sure I need to get the pocket microscope out and look at x40

The 'problem' I have, is that I regularly hear people on the net saying how much better one printer looks than another or that they only print at the very best settings. My own experience suggests that in blind tests, many people are worse at judging print quality than they might like to suggest or believe.

Then again I know that people who look at prints with hand lenses very rarely buy prints.

The picture below illustrates the difficulty of showing nuances of print quality in a web article.

The cactus flowers were from my conservatory and in the print, bring out some very subtle variations in the brilliant red. I've tried to show this here, but it's a photo of a print under halogen lighting...

The image file is 16-bit and in the large ProPhoto colour space.

There are large areas of the flower petals that are outside of the gamut of the sRGB colour space I'm using here on the web.

The image at the right shows -some- of the sort of detail that was easily printable.

The lavender flowers below also have some intense dark saturated colours and that pure black background.

The print shows no bronzing and avoids that 'ink sitting on the paper surface' look that used to be common with pigment ink based printers.

When you are looking at test prints, try and find ones that reflect some of the sorts of image you want to print.

That's for colour prints - what about black and white?

Black and white

You can print black and white images using the same settings as for colour ones, however I was interested to see how well the special B/W print mode worked.

Below, I'm printing a greyscale image via the Photoshop plugin, just using the default B/W print mode, and centring the image on an A3+ sheet of cotton rag paper.

The print (of the Oregon coast) looks excellent and I'd happily supply it to a client.

When selecting paper types, you have the whole range of paper options, and in a welcome enhancement, the B/W print mode is available for custom paper types too.

This particular image is in the grey Gamma 2.2 space and at 16 bit.

If you've the (real) resolution in an image, you can benefit from supplying input files at 600 dpi, although my usual caveats apply as to whether anyone will actually notice.

The print dialogue allows you to apply sharpening to an image, but this is generally something I'd prefer to do selectively before printing, as with scaling.

If you prefer cooler/warmer blacks, then you can adjust the print.

Move your mouse over the image to see (change is quite subtle).

I've found when looking at printer B/W print modes, there is often slight inaccuracies in the linearisation of greyscale printing.

This is one aspect I like to get right, before printing my images. If I'm happy with the linearisation, then I find I'm less likely to get unexpected results when printing an image for the first time.

The quick test for this is to look at the bull's-eye target on my B/W test image.

This part of the test image is the best quick indicator of non linearity in a B/W print.

It should be a smooth gradient, right the way to the centre.

It's a very tough test and will show up unevenness and bumps that might not be obvious in many photographic images.

One way to correct this is to create a QTR linearising profile.

I print the small target and read the densities with an i1 spectrophotometer.

I've discussed this elsewhere, using both the Spyder3Print and ColorMunki measuring devices.

When you've created a profile, you need to apply this to your image to correct for non linearities in the printer output.

There is an alternative that I've still not been able to test accurately. That's to use the curves option in the colour settings dialogue.

This allows you to use a standard Photoshop .acv curve file to correct things. I've not yet come across an easy way to generate one of these in the way that QTR does with its profiles.

But how far out are the defaults for existing Canon papers?

Not that bad, it would appear from testing a few (satin and fine art).

The graph below shows the output from QTR's profile generation software from an unbranded 240gsm satin paper that the printer turned up with.

I used this for some quick testing since it's similar to the Canon version that I was keeping for some other prints.

The curve is pretty linear and apart from slight crushing of very deep shadow detail, gave a very pleasing rendition.

The 'a' and 'b' lines in the graph show the effects of different inks being used at different levels, and the presence of moderate amounts of brightening agents (OBAs) in the paper.

Alternate printing software

QTR is an excellent shareware application, widely used to get accurate results from Epson printers for black and white, with normal ink sets and specialist black and white ones - it only works on the one make of printer.

I was pleased to find that there is a commercial printing solution aimed at monochrome print makers using Canon printers.

It's called 'True Black and White' and is designed to be used on Canon large format printers.

I've been putting it through its paces whilst I had the iPF6300 and it looks to be a useful bit of software. Since this review is just about the iPF6300, I'll be writing up a review of True Black and White during the next couple of weeks (since I do actually have 'real' work that gets in the way sometimes ;-)

True Black and White - full review

Conclusions

Well, writing this review has taken longer than usual - ...there's a lot you can do with a printer like this.

A quick reminder that I'm reviewing this printer from the point of view of a photographer who produces relatively low volumes of prints. For myself, print quality trumps minor running cost differences, and media costs are a relatively small part of my eventual print prices.

After running an awful lot of paper through the printer I can definitely see how much of its functionality has been tweaked and improved from the iPF6100. We have a lengthy review of the iPF6100 that may put some of this review in context.

The new printer may not be different enough that I'd tell someone to junk their iPF6100 and rush to get an iPF6300, but as a new printer, Canon have raised the quality bar to make it a serious consideration for fine art use.

After creating some custom ICC profiles, I considered this printer and the prints I could make from it, up to the standard required for producing a print destined for the Royal Photograph Collection at Windsor Castle (UK).

It might not be one of my own original images, but having worked from the 320MB RAW file, I feel it worth my stamp as print maker.

OK, so I like the the printer. What about some of Canon's claims for the 6300/6350/8300?

According to Canon, some of the key features of this printer are:

LUCIA EX Ink Set
Media Configuration Tool
High-Precision Print Modes
Built-in Calibration
Print Plug-in for Adobe Photoshop
Redesigned Control Panel

Inks

During my profiling of the printer for several types of paper, the gamut seemed larger than from when I looked at the iPF6100.

Not having both printers to compare, I'm relying on old data from when I looked at the previous printer. However I don't have any evidence that wildly contradicts Canon's assertion of a 20% gain in gamut.

More immediately noticeable in real world images (i.e. not ones specially created to illustrate some aspect of a printer's performance) was the reduction in gloss differential and bronzing.

It's worth noting that only a few years ago (2005) the amount of bronzing you got with pigment inks was very noticeable on glossy papers. It's much lower in recent printers, so the improvement between iPF6100 and iPF6300 is there, but you do have to look for it.

Where the emphasis in Canon publicity for the iPF6100 was for speed and economy, there has been a subtle shift to address more quality and ease of use issues, both for proofing and fine art use.

The inks are said to be more 'scuff resistant' - a quick rub of the fingernail suggests that this is so, but I actually prefer to take good care of prints and handle them carefully...

Media Configuration

A much welcomed improvement in flexibility and capabilities of this tool.

At last I can be a lot more confident of getting the very best out of my favourite papers - both for colour and B/W. Customisation and linearisation may not be up to what you get with expensive RIP software, but this is a lot easier and a lot cheaper. One less reason to fork out for an expensive RIP.

The 'custom' papers are what a lot of people will use for day to day work - I have several third party papers I regularly use for my fine art printing.

For the panoramic print I produced for the Royal Collection, I happened to chose a Canon satin photographic paper.

Personal Gripe: As an aside, I wish printer manufacturers (all of them, not just Canon) could accept that we won't be using their papers for -everything- we print. Terms such as 'Genuine' for describing papers are simply marketing FUD, and from my own point of view, just a tad insulting to my intelligence and integrity ;-)

High Precision Print Modes

More attention has been given to offering a range of print modes. There are lots of options that potentially make improvements to what you'll see on the paper.

The differences between 'high' and 'highest' may frequently be invisible to most people (apart from taking longer and using a bit more ink), but stuff like this matters to the markets I see this printer aimed at.

The 'high precision photographs' checkbox is the one that invokes a different screening algorithm and shows up really fine detail.

Just remember that to really get the benefits from what a printer like this offers, you need to address the whole workflow from taking your photograph onwards. I've worked in 16 bit for several years and taken care with choices of working space and RAW conversion software for different images.

The only people who look at my prints with a magnifying glass and then go on to buy them are photographers paying for my time as a print maker. People who buy my own work, who want my photos to go on a wall to look at, stand back and look from a reasonable distance ;-)

Calibration

Works easily, although perhaps Canon should include a special roll of calibration paper with each printer - it doesn't need to be a huge roll, just of good consistent quality.

Print plugin

My two previous gripes were with colour management and that annoying 'are you sure' dialogue when quitting - both have been addressed, with the availability of BPC and using the Adobe CMM a definite step forward.

Unfortunately, the plugin does not currently work in 64bit mode with CS5 on the Mac - whilst irksome, I should note that all my other favourite plugins don't currently work in 64 bit mode either...

Given the choice, I now prefer to use the plugin over the Photoshop print dialogue.

Redesigned control panel

I didn't have a problem with the old control panel, but the new one seems very logical and easy to understand.

The load/feed/cut buttons make it easy to set things up.

I do have two (minor) issues though:

20% steps in ink capacity for the cartridges and maintenance tank - as I mentioned earlier, do I want a fuel gauge for my car that goes from 1/5 full to empty in one single step? No
Why two button presses every time I want to load a sheet of paper? Like a program that asks 'are you sure' every time you want to quit, this is just a minor but needless irritation that builds with every sheet you load.

General printer use

Paper loading was accurate and during the period of use I had only a few minor misfeeds of sheet paper when I was first using the printer. The printer is now capable of working out the size of paper inserted, which gets rid of some annoying size mismatches.

This and the fact that the printer did not leave any grab marks on thick papers such as I found with the iPF6100, leads me to think that paper handling has also been refined and tweaked from the earlier model. I tested sheets up to A2 size and they worked just fine.

I only briefly tried front loading, since it only works for certain media types. It worked reliably, but I still found it a bit fiddly to line up sheets.

Printer software all worked reliably on the various Apple Macs I used, ranging from a G4 PowerBook to the latest Mac Pro desktop machine. I noticed one glitch in the display, but this didn't seem to affect printing.

Accounting software - as I mentioned, Canon seems to think that Mac users don't do boring stuff with spreadsheets. The software is Windows only. We don't have a PC in the building, and I'd not get one just to check ink and paper usage on my printer. For serious print use and sales, this is a major omission.

Ink changeover was simple and straightforward - watch out for the 90ml. starter cartridges though. They will empty relatively quickly on a brand new printer.

Overall, a very capable printer that I was somewhat loathe to return ;-)

In the UK, our Canon Large Format supplies come from www.ipfstore.co.uk

Summary

One of the best quality printers we've looked at to date, easy to configure and set up.

24" width, with roll and sheet paper support. Very good custom media configuration options.

Easy to use software, offering consistent high quality printing.

Windows only utility software for usage cost overview and analysis.

Compared to the older iPF6100, the iPF6300 has been improved in almost every area - not enough to make you rush out and dump your 6100, but some useful improvements.

6300 SPECIFICATIONS (from Canon)

Printer Type	12 Colour, 24 inch width Printer
Number of Nozzles	Total: 30,720 All colours: 2,560 nozzles for each ink
Nozzle Pitch	1,200 dpi - Non-firing nozzle detection and compensation
Print Resolution (Up to)	2,400 x 1,200 dpi (Max.)
OS Compatibility	Macintosh OS X 10.3.9-10.6 (32 bit), OS X 10.5-10.6 (64-bit) Windows 2000 (32 bit), XP (32/64 bit), Server 2003 (32/64 bit), Server 2008 (32/64 bit), Windows Vista (32/64 bit), Windows 7 (32/64 bit)
Standard Interface	USB 2.0 High-speed 10/100/1000 Base-T/TX
Ink droplet size	4 picolitre
Ink Cart Capacity	130ml per colour, inks are LUCIA EX ink (Pigment-based)
Colour Set	Cyan, Photo Cyan, Magenta, Photo Magenta, Yellow, Black, Matte Black, Red, Green. Blue, Grey, Photo Grey
Buffer/Ram	384 MB
Media Width	Cut Sheet and Roll: 8" to 24"
Media Thickness	Top Loading Manual Feed: 0.07 - 0.8mm (3.2 - 31.4mil) Front Loading Manual Feed: 0.5 - 1.5mm (19.6 - 59.0mil) Roll: 0.07 - 0.8mm (3.2 - 31.4mil)
Maximum Roll Print Length	59 Feet (18 metres)
Maximum Media Roll Diameter	5.9" (150mm)
Borderless Printing Width (Roll Media Only)	10" (254 mm), B4 (257 mm), A3+ (329 mm), 14" (356 mm), 16" (407 mm), A2 (420 mm), A2+/17" (432 mm), B2 (515 mm), A1 (594 mm), 24" (610 mm)
Paper-Feed Method	Roll Feed: One Roll, front output Top Loading Manual Feed: One sheet, front output Front Loading Manual Feed: One sheet, front output
Languages	GARO (Canon Proprietary)
Noise Level (Approx.)	Operation: 47dB (A) or less Acoustic Power: 6.4 Bels
Physical Dimensions	(with stand): 39.1" (H) x 46.4" (W) x 34.3" (D)
Weight	Approximately 146lbs. with stand
User-replaceable items	Print Head (PF-05) Maintenance Cartridge (MC-16) Ink Tanks (PFI-105)
Software Included	Canon Printer Driver, Print Plug-in for Adobe Photoshop. Print Plug-in for Digital Photo Professional, PosterArtist Lite (PC Only), Digital Photo Front-Access, Printer Driver Extra Kit (Free Layout, Color imageRUNNER Enlargement Copy, Advanced Preview), Print Plug-in for Microsoft Word/Excel/PowerPoint (PC only), Accounting Manager

Printer is supplied with:

imagePROGRAF iPF6300 printer with Stand & Basket
2" Roll Holder with 3" core adapters
2 Print Heads
1 Maintenance Cartridge (Installed)
12, 90ml Starter Ink Tanks (BK, MBK, C, M, Y, PC, PM, GY, PGY, R, G, B)
Sample Roll Heavyweight Coated Paper
Ethernet Card (built in)
USB 2.0 High-Speed Interface
User Manual CD
Quick Setup Guide (Poster)
Printer Reference Guide (Booklet)
Power Cable
One Year Warranty Card
Registration Card
PosterArtist Lite Application CD
User Software CD with:
imagePROGRAF Printer Driver
Print Plug-in for Photoshop
Print Plug-in for Digital Photo Professional
Media Configuration Tool
Accounting Manager
Print Plug-in for Microsoft Office
Printer Driver Extra Kit
Digital Photo Front-Access
imagePROGRAF Status Monitor

More Info

Canon iPF5100 review - includes newer driver software than covered in this review
iPF6100 review - the predecessor to the 6300
iPF6300 manual - downloadable as PDF.
iPF8300 - Usage notes/review
Aug 2010 -The Canon USA site has updated firmware to V1.0.8 The Canon Europe site is still showing firmware V1.0.5
True Black and White - review
The Canon iPF wiki - unofficial resource.
Onsight - a good review of the 6300 - includes comparisons to HP and Epson
DPR forum post - an iPF6100 user recounts actual ink usage
Other articles by Keith Cooper related to printing and colour management.
Printing info and tips (esp. B/W).
Better B/W with the ColorMunki (shows QTR correction).
All our other reviews.
HP Z3200ps review.
Epson 7880 review.
Epson 4880 review.

You can search all the hundreds of articles on the site for more information

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Northlight Images is based in Leicester in the UK and supplies Commercial Photography services
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